Two engineers nabbed while taking Rs 60K bribe

Bhubaneswar: In a big catch, the Odisha Vigilance on Monday laid a trap and nabbed two engineers for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 60,000 from a contractor in Mayurbhanj district. The accused engineers, identified as Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE) Harekrushna Singh and Junior Engineer (JE) Subrat Mohanty are working in Odisha Lift Irrigation Corporation, Udala Sub-Division of Mayurbhanj district.

The Vigilance sources revealed that the duo were apprehended while demanding and accepting the bribe amount in instalments, with Rs 32,000 being share of AEE and Rs 28,000 for JE for the release of pending bills of work executed by the contractor.

“The contractor had completed projects worth Rs 25 lakh. However, the accused AEE Singh and JE Mohanty had withheld bills of about Rs 5 lakh and had also not released the security deposit, demanding Rs 1.10 lakh bribe @ 4.5%. Faced with such harassment, the contractor approached Vigilance authorities,” said a Vigilance official.

Acting on the complaint, the anti-corruption sleuths laid a trap on Monday and arrested Singh and Mohanty while receiving the bribe money of Rs 60,000 from the complainant contractor. The entire bribe money was recovered and seized from both the accused in the presence of witnesses.

Following the trap, simultaneous searches have been conducted on the residential house of Singh at Khunta in Balasore and his office chamber, the residential house of Mohanty at Baripada, the paternal house at Rairangpur and his office room. The sleuths, during the searches, found Rs 1.80 lakh in Singh’s house.