Odisha: Junior Engineer caught taking bribe for street-light estimate

Bhubaneswar, June 19 (IANS) The Odisha Vigilance on Friday arrested a Junior Engineer (JE) of the General Electrical Division (GED), Jagatsinghpur district, for accepting a bribe from a person to prepare an estimate for installing streetlights at a Gram Panchayat in the district.

Vigilance sources revealed that on May 8, the executant had submitted a letter from the Gram Panchayat authority to Soma Das, JE, for preparing the estimate to obtain a work order in his favour.

Despite repeated requests by the executant, Das kept the estimate pending without reason. However, the accused JE demanded a bribe of Rs 15,000 from the executant, equivalent to 1 per cent of the total estimate of Rs 15 lakh for the work. Finding no other way, the executant approached the Vigilance authorities, narrating harassment by the accused JE and seeking action against her.

“Based on the complaint, a trap was laid on June 19, wherein the accused Das was nabbed by the team of Odisha Vigilance in her office room for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 15,000 from the executant. The entire bribe money was recovered and seized from the possession of Das, JE, in the presence of witnesses,” said a senior Vigilance official.

Following the trap, simultaneous searches were launched at the rented residential house of Das in Cuttack and her office room in Jagatsinghpur. She has been arrested and will be forwarded to the court on Saturday.

In another case, Vigilance sleuths on Friday unearthed movable and immovable assets worth crores during simultaneous house searches at properties linked to Satyanarayan Sethy, Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE), Kotpada Block in Koraput district, on allegations of possessing assets disproportionate to known sources of income.

The properties unearthed during the raids include two flats (one benami flat), two farmhouses spanning 14 acres, 49 valuable plots (17 benami plots), gold weighing approximately 940 grams, silver weighing around 2.5 kg, cash amounting to Rs 5.48 lakh, deposits over Rs 60.92 lakh, one benami four-wheeler, among other assets.

–IANS

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