Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Thursday arrested a forest official red handed while demanding and accepting bribe in Jammu Kashmir’s Bandipora district.
ACB received a written complaint against Mushtaq Ahmad Sofi, a Range officer, Kuhihama in Bandipora from a complainant alleging therein that the concerned officer is demanding bribe as commission of Rs 10,000 for processing his bill for release of due payments, a ACB statement said.
The complainant, who is a contractor and had completed the allotted work for an amount of Rs 3,21,000, said the forest department has already released two bills in his favour.
However, the final bill to the tune of about Rs. One lakh is pending with the said department from last one and half month for which concerned Range Officer put a demand of bribe as his commission of Rs 15,000 for all three bills including already two released bills.
That said amount after negotiations with the accused Range officer, was settled on Rs 10,000 and the complainant arranged said amount and approached ACB with a complaint requesting for legal action.
On receipt of complaint which prima facie disclosed the commission of offence punishable U/s 7 of the PC Act 1988 (as amended in 2018), accordingly case FIR No. 13/2023 was registered at PS ACB Baramulla and investigation was taken up.
During the course of investigation, a trap team was constituted headed by DySP rank officer who successfully trapped and caught accused public servant Sofi, a resident of Onagam, Bandipora posted while demanding and accepting the bribe money.
The bribe amount was recovered from the possession of the accused in presence of independent witnesses, the statement added.
The accused was immediately taken into custody after following the due process as laid down under law and searches at his residence were conducted.
