Ranchi: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Monday arrested a staff member of the Deputy Commissioner, Land Reforms (DCLR) office and a middleman in Jharkhand’s Saraikela district for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh.
The accused have been identified as Pritam Acharya, an employee at the DCLR office, and a broker. According to officials, they had demanded a total of Rs 40 lakh from complainant Gurucharan Singh Sardar in return for resolving a land compensation case and submitting a favourable report.
Acting on the complaint, the ACB set up a trap. The complainant arrived at the said location with Rs 5 lakh as the first instalment. As soon as the money was handed over, officials who had been closely monitoring the situation moved in and caught both accused red-handed.
The arrests caused a stir at the Saraikela Collectorate and the Land Reforms office. Following the operation, both individuals were taken to Jamshedpur for further interrogation.
With this latest action, the number of arrests in bribery cases in Jharkhand this month has gone up to eight.
In earlier incidents, on March 19, the ACB’s Dumka unit arrested a Block Supply Officer in Sahibganj district for allegedly taking Rs 50,000 from a Public Distribution System dealer. On March 17, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) caught a junior engineer of South Eastern Railway in Bokaro accepting a Rs 15,000 bribe.
Similarly, on March 13, two employees of the District Land Acquisition Office in Deoghar were arrested for allegedly seeking commission in a compensation case linked to a ring road project. On March 12, a sub-inspector in Koderma and a panchayat secretary in Gumla were also held in separate bribery cases.
The ACB said it is now investigating the accused for disproportionate assets and possible links to a wider network. It has also urged citizens not to pay bribes for government services and to report any such demands immediately.
With inputs from IANS