Udaipur : The anti corruption officials on thursday arrested a reader at the SDM office in Gogunda, for accepting bribe of fourteen thousand rupees.The accused reader Dharmesh Meghwal had demanded 32 thousand rupees and had in two installments already received 18 thousand rupees in earlier occasions from the complainant.
“The reader Meghwal demanded the bribe amount from complainant Devilal son of Banshilal Paliwal, a resident of Kunawali village in Gogunda block in lieu of conversion of title of land for which Paliwal’s application was pending at the office. Meghwal reportedly told the complainant that share of the bribe would go to many officials including the Tehsildar and Patwari too” Additional SP of the local ACB unit, Sudhir Joshi said. Devilal told the ACB that a case of inheritance of his ancestral land was ongoing in the revenue board and the decision was in his favour.
In pursuance of the decision, Devilal had applied for title conversion at the SDM office alongwith a copy of the revenue board decision. The SDM had marked the application to the reader for further action however, the reader demanded 35 thousand rupees for the process claiming that only if he paid the sum, the patwari and tehsildar would approve his file for conversion. Later, on bargaining, the bribe amount was settled at 32 thousand rupees and Meghwal took 8 thousand rupees immediately from him. Devilal informed the ACB and gave the second installment of 10 thousand rupees to the reader at the time of verification of the complaint.
The reader said that the file would only move after he had paid the balance 14 thousand rupees and on Thursday when Devilal went to the SDM office to pay the amount, the ACB team caught the reader red handed. Devilal told the ACB team that his financial condition was quite weak and he had sold his mother’s jewelry to pay the lawyer’s fees for the revenue court. ” We will investigate about the Patwari and Tehsildar’s role in the bribery case since the reader had said that the money was to be shared with them too” the ACB officer said.
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