Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena has given his nod to an Anti Corruption Branch-probe into alleged charges of bribery against an officer earlier posted as deputy secretary in the Chief Minister's office. The officer was accused of seeking "monetary benefits" and also "harassing" a civil defence volunteer.
"The Lt Governor has granted approval to the ACB to conduct investigation against Mukul Manrai, the then Deputy Secretary in Chief Minister's Office (CMO), looking after Jan Samvad, the Public Grievance Management System (PGMS) has been charged with illegally demanding monetary gratification from a civil defence volunteer in lieu of certifying his attendance register,” sources in Raj Niwas said. The officer, currently posted at the Revenue department.
had also written to the Civil Defence office for removal of the volunteer who could not even get his last month's salary, they said.
Upon being refused for the demanded payment by the victim, Manrai wrote to the Civil Defence Office for his removal, as a result of which he could not even get his last month’s salary. Manrai is currently working in the revenue department, said sources.
“With hundreds of similar complaints by hapless CDV’s doing rounds, it appears that Manrai using the cover provided by CMO had established a blatant racket of monthly collections, out of the payment being made to CDVs. It took a severely and continuously harassed complainant in the extant case to record the conversation regarding demand of money by Manrai and create evidence thereof, for the racket, with CMO as a front to start unravelling,” said sources.
“It may be noted that the complain along with the CD recording as evidence, was received in November, 2017 and since then it had been moving in circles.
Evidently, the accused utilized his position of proximity in the CMO to deliberately delay the matter by making the file pointlessly shuffle between the concerned departments including Directorate of Vigilance (DoV), General Administration Department, Administrative Reforms Department and the Education Department.
This obviously indicates attempts at delaying the process for benefitting the accused,” it said. The sources informed that upon receiving a complaint from the victim who had also submitted a CD of video recording, the ACB began enquiry by sending the CD to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for authentication. The FSL, which did a frame-by-frame analysis of the video and audio, found it to be unaltered, untampered and genuine.
The ACB also submitted a transcript of the conversation, provided by FSL, between the victim and the accused. After having gone through the evidence put on record by Bureau, the DoV found that Manrai abused his ‘official position for pecuniary gains’ and recommended for investigation in the matter by ACB. Having been satisfied with the evidence provided on file, the LG has since granted approval for investigation by the ACB on priority,” sources added.