Goa, Aug. 29 -- A Thane court on Friday held that the CBI's arrests of a senior IRS officer and two others in an alleged Rs.1.5-crore bribery case were not carried out in accordance with the law and ordered their release on personal bonds of Rs.15,000 each.

The court also rejected the Central Bureau of Investigation's request for custodial interrogation of the accused, observing that the alleged bribe money had already been seized. The court further noted that mobile phones belonging to all three accused had been recovered during their personal searches and said there were no satisfactory grounds for further custodial interrogation.

The accused were identified as Vinay Kumar Kantheti, a 2009-batch Indian Revenue Service officer serving ...