Engineer arrested accepting bribe in Jammu

Jammu, Apr 16 (UNI) A Junior Engineer (JE) of roads and buildings department was caught by the State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) here while accepting a bribe of Rs 25,000 from a contractor for releasing his payment, an official spokesman said today .

Acting on a written complaint lodged by one Balvinder Singh, contractor, of Nanak Nagar (Jammu), the SVO sleuths arrested Arvind Gupta, JE, posted in Division-III, and supervising a road construction.

The complainant had alleged that the accused had been harrassing him for preparation of bills against the progress of the work and had demanded illegal gratification of Rs 25,000 for preparation of bills.

Recently, the complainant completed the construction of about 300 metres of the road length for which an estimate of Rs 2.22 lakh stands already sanctioned. But the JE refused to prepare the account bill and demanded Rs 25,000.

The work for execution of construction of Jeevan Nagar-Maralia road was allotted to the contractor by the chief engineer, R and B Jammu, in December 2006, at the estimated cost of Rs 21 lakh.

The vigilance sleuths laid a trap and caught Arvind Gupta yesterday while accepting bribe from the complainant at Panama Chowk in the presence of independent witnesses " His hand wash was also taken which tested positive,'' the spokesman said.

The accused was taken into custody for further investigation.

UNI VJ NY HT1420