No evidence of corruption against senior bureaucrat: ACB to HC

The Anti-Corruption Bureau today informed the Bombay High Court it had conducted a probe into allegations of corruption against Maharashtra bureaucrat R A Rajeev and prima facie did not find any evidence against him.
A division bench of Justice P V Hardas was hearing a petition filed by Pratap Sarnaik, MLA from Ovala constituency of Thane district, alleging there was large scale corruption in renovation of office premises of the civic body's town development department during the tenure of Rajeev, the then Municipal Commissioner of Thane.
The ACB filed an affidavit today saying it had conducted a probe on the basis of two complaints lodged by the petitioner and prima facie did not find any evidence against Rajeev, currently principal secretary, environment, in respect of the allegations of corruption.

ACB's Deputy Superintendent of Police Jayraj Chhapra, said in the affidavit that they had referred the matter to the principal secretary, urban development department, urging him to conduct a high-level probe in this regard if it was deemed necessary. Also, if they found that Prevention of Corruption Act had been violated then they should inform the ACB.
The matter had been referred to urban development department because the petitioner had sought sanction from the principal secretary to prosecute Rajeev.
The court has asked the petitioner's counsel Pranil Sonawane to file a counter reply to ACB's affidavit by September 17.
The petition alleged that the office of town development, located on fourth floor of Thane Municipal Corporation building, was renovated at a cost of Rs 65 lakh which was sponsored by Maharashtra Chambers of Housing Industry, an association of builders.

The petitioner further alleged that the builder's lobby had put in such a huge amount of money to favour the bureaucrats such as Rajeev and demanded an ACB probe into the allegations.