Jamshedpur, Jan. 13: Anti-corruption Bureau (ACB) team from Jamshedpur on Friday nabbed a head clerk of West Singhbhum district certificate office in Chaibasa for allegedly accepting Rs 40,000 as bribe from a representative of the private company.
The accused was identified as Uptal Gopalan, a resident of Supaul district in Bihar. The ACB team from the department’s divisional office at Sonari arrested Gopalan (47) at his office in Chaibasa at about 11 am and brought him to their office in Sonari. Deputy superintendent of police (ACB) Amar Pandey, who was leading a seven-member team to nab Gopalan, said that as per their investigation the accused had demanded Rs 1 lakh for not issuing an arrest warrant against a senior official of Abhijit Group.
Pandey said the Abhijit Group was asked to pay Rs 98 crores to the Commercial Tax department as commercial tax, but as the company failed to do so, the authority of the commercial tax department had passed the onus for the due on district certificate office, Chaibasa. He said the reason the commercial department referred the district certificate office was to get the due realised from Abhijit Group through the district certificate office either by getting the company’s properties auctioned.
“As the matter was referred to the district certificate office, the Abhijit Group approached to the Jharkhand High Court.
But despite the matter was pending in the Jharkhand high court, the district certificate office head clerk would intimidate the Abhijit Group’s functionary to get arrested by issuing warrant against them,” said Pandey.
He said the head clerk had demanded Rs 1 lakh for extenuating the case at the district certificate office level, and if the demand is not met, then he would issue warrant against him. “As we received the complain, with the senior official of the company we decided a deal with the head clerk and had agreed to pay Rs 1 lakh, but in parts.
Today was the day for making the payment of Rs 40,000 as first installment. But the company official had lodged a complaint against the head clerk with the ACB on Wednesday.
We gave the company official some chemical to be smeared in the currency notes and we fixed the time for payment of the bribe. As the official paid the money, we swooped over the head clerk and nabbed him,� said Pandey.
