UNITED NATIONS — A U.N. official at the center of the Turtle Bay procurement scandals, Sanjaya Bahel, was arrested yesterday in New York by federal authorities on charges of misconduct, according to U.N. and federal officials.

Mr. Bahel is accused of using his position at the procurement department to benefit two companies, including the Indian government-owned Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd. He is expected to be arraigned today in federal court. A representative of the two companies, Nishahn Kohli, was also arrested yesterday in Miami.

Mr. Bahel, 55, “allegedly sold his influence as a U.N. procurement official,” the U.S attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael Garcia, said in a statement. “He favored Nishahn Kohli’s companies in obtaining and maintaining valuable U.N. contracts, and he personally profited as a result.”

According to the federal indictment, Mr. Bahel granted special access to Mr. Kohli’s companies, allowing him to secure U.N. contracts worth more than $50 million for TCIL and $12 million for the other company he represented, Thunderbird. In return, Mr. Bahel received a Midtown condominium owned by Mr. Kohli, which Mr. Bahel’s family first rented at a discount, then later purchased for a price “substantially below” its market value.

“For Americans and people throughout the world, the United Nations has stood for the dual missions of international diplomacy and humanitarian works,” Mark Mershohn of the FBI said. But Messrs. Bahel and Kohli “conspired instead to peddle and purchase influence, to pervert the U.N. procurement process for personal profit.”

A U.N. official familiar with the case said Mr. Bahel, who has been suspended without pay since August, was arrested by the FBI on his way to John F. Kennedy International Airport yesterday, where he planned to pick up a family member. He had returned to New York from his native India earlier this week. On September 11, after his August suspension following an internal probe, Mr. Bahel asked to go to India for 30 working days to take care of his family there.

A U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told The New York Sun that Secretary-General Annan agreed to lift Mr. Bahel’s immunity at the request of federal authorities. The United Nations has transferred the results of its own investigation to the Southern District office.

“The government of India expects that due process of law would be extended” to Mr. Bahel, said an Indian Foreign Ministry official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

Mr. Bahel has served as chief of the Commodity Procurement Section within the Procurement Division of the United Nations until 2003.

One of the most sensitive divisions at Turtle Bay, the procurement department is responsible for awarding contracts worth millions of dollars to companies around the world. It has been under increased scrutiny since the oil-for-food scandal.

As allegations of wrongdoing in the poorly audited department grew, the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services’ investigation department cleared several officials, including Mr. Bahel, of any wrongdoing.

Once the OIOS “dropped the ball,” as one official familiar with the case described it to the Sun, top U.N. officials decided last January to establish a separate unit, dubbed the Procurement Task Force.

It was that dedicated unit that decided to suspend eight officials last spring, including Mr. Bahel. In August, the Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore first detailed some of the allegations against Mr. Bahel in a report prepared by the task force. By August, Mr. Bahel was suspended without pay.

According to yesterday’s indictment, Mr. Bahel “granted exceptional access” to Mr. Kohli, providing him with a “line of communication and source for information within the U.N. that exceeded what U.N. vendors could typically expect to receive.” He was also “a vocal advocate within the U.N.” for TCIL and Thunderbird.

In 2003, according to the indictment, Mr. Kohli bought an apartment at the Dag Hammarskjold Towers in Midtown Manhattan and rented it to Mr. Bahel and his family for two years.

Mr. Bahel paid “a greatly reduced monthly rent and no rent at all for certain months.”

Mr. Kohli sold the apartment to Mr. Bahel in May 2005. “The purchase price of the apartment was substantially below the market value — so much so that the condominium board of the building contemplated exercising its right of first refusal to block the sale,” the indictment said.

Mr. Bahel was unavailable for comment yesterday. In September, he denied the U.N. report’s allegations against him, telling the Associated Press that he had “good reasoning and valid reasoning to counter” the details of the report. Mr. Kohli reportedly refused to speak to the U.N. task force.

If convicted, each could received a maximum of 10 years in prison.