Village office staff arrested for bribery, Vigilance bureau seizes Rs 1 cr in cash, bank deposits
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Palakkad: The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) in Kerala on Tuesday arrested V Suresh Kumar, a village field assistant in Palakkad’s Palakkayam village on charges of taking bribes.
The team also recovered money to the tune of Rs 1 crore from his possession after they raided his rented one-room residence.
While he had stored bundles of currency notes amounting to Rs 35 lakh in cardboard boxes and plastic covers at his home, Suresh also had Rs 70 lakh in his bank accounts, officials said.
The vigilance officials caught Suresh red-handed while taking Rs 2,500 in bribes from a person at a revenue adalat in Mannarkkad following which a search of his rented room revealed the cash and deposit documents worth over a crore.
The officials had received a complaint from a person that Suresh had demanded a bribe for the third time, following which officers were on the watch during the revenue adalat on Tuesday.
However, they had not anticipated recovering a sum as large as Rs 1 crore from his possession.
“Around Rs 35 lakhs cash, Rs 45 lakhs in fixed deposits and bonds, and Rs 25 lakhs in the savings bank account was seized by the team upon raiding his house”, Palakkad Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) S Shamsudeen told The News Minute.
Other properties including 10 brand new shirts, sacks of tamarind, 10 litre of honey, bundles of pens, and other items were also seized from his room.
The inspection which started at 6.30 pm was completed around 8.30 pm.
Suresh from Malayinkeezhu in Thiruvananthapuram has been working as a field assistant in the village offices in Mannarkkad since 2001.
According to a report in The New Indian Express, the complainant was a person from Manjeri village who had 45 acres of land and sought a location certificate from the village office, towards which Suresh demanded a bribe of Rs 2,500.
Earlier, the same person had paid bribes on two occasions — Rs 10,000 and Rs 9,000 each for obtaining two other certificates.
A report by Manorama News said that he had been saving the money to construct a house in Thiruvananthapuram as part of his retirement plan and to provide some money to his sister.
Suresh has been arrested and booked under section 7A (taking undue advantage to influence public servants by corrupt or illegal means or by exercise of personal influence) of The Prevention of Corruption Act.
The vigilance officials claim that this was the largest sum ever recovered from a revenue officer in Kerala, reports Manorama News. The case will be heard on June 7.
