ACB: Rs 13.25 lakh, 1.5 kg gold found from bank lockers of Krishi Mandi XEn and AEn in Udaipur

Jaipur: Rajasthan anti-corruption bureau (ACB) on Friday allegedly recovered Rs 13.25 lakh cash and nearly 1.5 kg gold from the bank lockers of executive engineer (XEn), Mahaveer Jain and assistant engineer (AEn) Prakash Bhanawat of Krishi Mandi in Udaipur. Both were arrested on Thursday after they were allegedly caught red-handed accepting a bribe of Rs 34,500 and 1,09,500 respectively.

An ACB officer said that Rs 13.25 lakh and nearly half a kg gold was recovered from the bank locker belonging to Mahaveer Jain. Similarly gold jewellery weighting 900 grams was recovered from the bank locker of Prakash Bhanawat. The gold recovered from both the lockers is estimated to be worth about Rs 50 lakh.

Earlier, the ACB had recovered documents pertaining to FD deposits of Rs 34.50 lakh and property ownership from the house of Jain in Udaipur’s Adarsh Nagar sector – 8. The ACB had also seized Rs 35,000 cash from the house of Bhanawat situated in Gayatri Nagar Hiran Magari sector – 5.

The duo was demanding the bribe from a contractor for releasing payment for the works undertaken by him, according to ACB. The trap was laid under the supervision of ACB SP Narottam Varma.

“The contractor works for Krishi Mandi in Udaipur. He had undertaken various works for which a total amount of Rs 17 lakh was pending. When he approached the two officials requesting them to release the payment, they demanded bribes,” said an ACB officer.

After the ACB verified the complaint and found it to be genuine, a trap was laid. Both were arrested after they were caught accepting bribe from the contractor.

The ACB have booked them under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and will produce them in a court.