Lokayukta sleuths on Wednesday trapped a special land acquisition officer of the KIADB and his assistant red-handed, ironically while returning the bribe amount he had received for an official favour.
Based on a complaint, a team of Lokayukta officials raided the office and arrested the accused officer, identified as A.B. Vijay Kumar, KAS, (special acquisition officer-2) and assistant Raghunath, land surveyor, charging them under various sections of the PC Act.
The complainant, Bhagath Singh Arun, had a total of 4.3 acres of land at Laggere. He had applied to get an NOC for 30 guntas of land which was not acquired by the KIADB. Vijay Kumar demanded and received ₹2.5 lakh bribe to issue the certificate. Agitated by this, Arun filed a complaint with the Deputy Commissioner of Land Acquisition against Vijay Kumar, for which he was summoned for inquiry.
To escape from the inquiry, Vijay Kumar called Arun and offered to return the bribe with an additional ₹50,000 in return for the withdrawal of the complaint filed against him.
However, Arun recorded the entire conversation and complained to the Lokayukta, who laid a trap and caught Raghunath and Vijay Kumar red-handed while they were handing over ₹3 lakh and receiving the complaint copy which he had withdrawn.
The duo have been taken into custody for further investigations, said P.K. Thakur, Additional Director General of Police (Lokayukta), who is supervising the investigations.
