The Punjab Vigilance Bureau (PVB) today arrested a district development and panchayat officer (DDPO) along with his superintendent and senior assistant for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 1 lakh.
Officer Jagtar Singh, Rakesh Kumar and Gurdarshan Singh were nabbed by vigilance sleuths for accepting the bribe, a spokesperson of the bureau said.
The arrests were made following a complaint by Mandeep Singh, who was a sarpanch of the Bheni Bagha Gram Panchayat in Mansa district from the 2008-12.
He was served a notice to deposit Rs 45 lakh by Jagtar Singh, then BDPO, Mansa, for committing irregularities in development works.
His agricultural land of 13 acres was also attached on the recommendation of Jagtar Singh for recovering the amount.
However, the Panchayats and Rural Development department on a review application from the former sarpanch ordered recheck of the previous development works through executive engineer Panchayti Raj, the spokesperson said.
The executive engineer has reported irregularities to the tune of only Rs 3.94 lakhs
The complainant approached the PVB and alleged that the DDPO Jagtar Singh, who was earlier posted as BDPO Mansa, demanded Rs 5 lakh as bribe and a deal was struck at Rs 2.20 lakh, the spokesperson said.
He also informed that he had already paid Rs 1 lakh to the accused DDPO through senior assistant Gurdarshan Singh.
The spokesperson added that after verifying his allegations the PVB team laid a trap and Rs 1 lakh, the second installment, was recovered from accused Rakesh Kumar who was along with the DDPO in the office in the presence of two official witnesses.
He informed that the PVB team also recovered the marked currency notes amounting to Rs 1 lakh from the house of DDPO during the search operation.
A case has been registered against all the three at the PVB police station in Bathinda and further investigations were under progress.
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