Bhubaneswar: The state Vigilance sleuths Thursday arrested two Minor Irrigation department officials in Gajapati district after catching them red-handed while accepting a cumulative bribe of Rs 30,000 to approve the pending bills of a contractor.
A senior Vigilance officer identified the arrested officials as Suraj Prasad Jaiswal and Naresh Pattanaik who work with the Minor Irrigation department in Gajapati district. While Suraj is posted as a Divisional Accounts Officer, Naresh works as a Senior Assistant at the superintendent’s office.
The Vigilance official said Suraj and Naresh had demanded Rs 15,000 each from the complainant, a contractor, when the latter approached them to clear pending bills worth Rs 32 lakh. “The complainant had earlier received three work orders in his name, and one in the name of a relative, with the total work order exceeding Rs 86 lakh.
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However, the two officers refused to clear his bills despite multiple rounds of request,” the Vigilance officer said. The aggrieved contractor moved the Vigilance department with a complaint after the duo demanded bribes to clear his bills following protracted delay. Acting on the complaint, the Vigilance sleuths laid a trap and apprehended Suraj and Naresh while they accepted bribes of Rs 15,000 each over Phone payment application on their respective smartphones, the officer added. Following their arrest, Vigilance sleuths carried out simultaneous searches at locations linked to the duo to ascertain their disproportionate assets, if any. The searches are still on. The officials have been booked under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018.
