Within a week of the announcement of the move to demonetise Rs. 500 and Rs 1000 notes to curb corruption and black money, two port trust officials from Gujarat have been arrested for accepting a bribe of Rs 2.5 lakh, on Wednesday. Also an extra of Rs 40,000 was recovered from the house of one of the men.
What came as a surprise is that the whole amount of Rs 2.9 lakh was found in new Rs 2,000 notes, which were launched on November 11.
The bribe of Rs 4.4 lakh was sought by Superintending Engineer P Srinivasu, and Sub-Divisional officer K Komtekar of the Kandla Port Trust (KPT) for clearing the pending bills of a private electrical firm, said the officials of Gujarat’s Anti-Corruption Bureau.
A middleman named Rudrasekhar, on behalf of the two officials, had accepted Rs 2.5 lakh as a part of the amount from the firm.
The middleman has also been arrested by the agency after they received a tip-off from the electric firm owners complaining about bribes being sought by KPT officials to clear their pending bills.
The sum of Rs 40,000 was later recovered from the home of Srinivasu. Officials said he confessed that he received the money earlier, which was the balance of the deal. The ACB officials are now investigating how the currency notes had been obtained.
While the individuals are struggling with daily lowered limits on cash transactions, a company was able to get access to Rs. 2.9 lakh. This, with a weekly limit of Rs 24,000 per person.
The Logical Indian urges people to report anyone asking for, or accepting bribes to the Anti-Corruption Bureau. It is only when we collectively take action against such activities that we will truly be able to weed out corruption.
