Three persons, including a senior scientific officer of Central Forensic Science Laboratory and an employee of Revenue department, were arrested on Sunday for allegedly entering into a criminal conspiracy and cheating people by posing as CBI officials and demanding bribe.

The CBI conducted searches based on a complaint from a property dealer in Ghaziabad against A R Arora, Senior Scientific Officer working with CFSL, alleging that he had threatened him with police action by lodging a complaint against him.

CBI examined the complaint and registered a case against Arora, an assistant posted in Department of Revenue Shiv Charan, a private person identified as Manish Sharma and an official of Central Excise Department under various sections of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act, CBI spokesperson said.

After registering cases, the CBI carried out searches at various places in Delhi and Karnal in Haryana and claimed to have recovered Rs three lakh in cash from Arora's residence.

According to the CBI spokesperson, it was alleged that the Senior Scientific Officer, while introducing himself as Additional Deputy Director CBI, falsely informed a property dealer based in Ghaziabad that a complaint against him was pending, for which the property dealer was required to visit him.

Arora is alleged to have threatened the property dealer that he would use his powers and register a criminal case against him and later advised him to get the matter pursued through Sharma by giving illegal gratification for settling the "complaint", which was false, the spokesperson said.

In another case, Arora is alleged to have actually carried out an illegal and unauthorised search at the premises of some businessman in order to obtain illegal gratification, the spokesperson said.

It was alleged that an employee of Shiv Charan, an assistant in the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, an official of Central Excise and Manish Sharma introduced themselves as public servants with powers to carry out search operations, and conducted illegal and unauthorised searches.

After the searches, they demanded an illegal gratification from the businessman to abate the search proceedings and allegedly received huge amount as bribe, the spokesperson said.