Was with Rajasthan’s consultancy company engaged by NHAI
The Newz Radar
Mandi: The State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (Vigilance) team apprehended the resident engineer of Rajasthan’s Theme Consultancy Company, employed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000.
Vigilance filed a case against the accused under the Prevention of Corruption Act and has taken him into custody. He will be presented in court on Friday. The accused, Devanshu, son of Shubh Narayan, is a resident of Rohtas district in Bihar.
NHAI has instructed the consultancy company’s management to terminate the accused’s employment. The accused had been soliciting the bribe for several days to issue a no objection certificate (NOC) for home construction in the Bhuntar area near the national highway. The distressed individual reported the matter to the Vigilance, which, under the leadership of DSP Ajay Kumar, assembled a team to apprehend the accused red-handed.
The accused was summoned to a dhaba in the Bhuntar vegetable market to receive the money. After taking the money, the Vigilance team caught him with the bribe as he was about to leave the dhaba. The consultancy company oversees the reconstruction work of the four-lane project in the Bhuntar area of the Kullu district.
Rahul Nath, Superintendent of Police, Vigilance Mandi, informed TNR that a resident’s complaint about an NHAI engineer demanding a bribe for issuing a clearance certificate had been received in their office. A trap was set, and the culprit was caught red-handed. Further investigation was underway, he said.
On being contacted, Varun Chari, project director, NHAI, clarified that the accused engineer, Devansh, was not an NHAI officer. “He is an engineer with a consultancy company in Rajasthan. The company has been instructed to terminate his employment promptly”, he said.
