Vigilance sleuths on Thursday caught Ganjam district’s Mujagarh Range Forest Guard Santosh Kumar Patra for demanding and accepting bribe of Rs2,000 from Pramod Mallick of Mahaguda village while threatening to file a forest wood theft case against him.
In his complaint, Mallick informed that he had brought eight pieces of wooden planks from the nearby forest and constructed a shed in his house.
But Forest Guard Patra asked him to produce documents relating against wooden planks and demanded bribe of Rs3,000 with an assurance that he would neither seize the wooden planks nor initiate any forest offence case against him.
After negotiation, Patra agreed to receive Rs2,000.
Acting on the complaint, the Vigilance sleuths laid a trap and caught the Forest Guard red-handed while taking Rs2,000 from the complainamnt. near Private Bus Stand, Bhanjanagar.
In another such case, Vigilance officers caught Bargarh district’s Attabira Tehsil Senior Clerk Narendra Kumar Nath for demanding and accepting bribe of Rs2,500 from Swarup Nayak of lachida village to insert her grandmother’s name in the RoR.
Nayak had requested Nath to insert the name of his grandmother Binodini Nayak in place of Jhanhabi Pati in the ROR as she is the only legal heir of her parents. Nath demanded Rs2,500 for this purpose.