Kasaragod: Village officer, assistant held for taking bribe from endosulfan-affected household

Express News Service

KASARAGOD: The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) arrested the village officer and the village assistant of Cheemeni village for taking a bribe of Rs 10,000 from the mom of an endosulfan survivor to assist her get the title deed of a 50-cent plot in her household’s possession for 70 years.

Village officer Okay V Santhosh (47) and village assistant KC Mahesh (45) have been caught red-handed from Cheemeni village workplace Friday night, stated Okay V Venugopal, DySP of the Anti-Corruption Bureau.

The girl needed to pawn her sacred marriage necklace (thali) to boost the cash. But earlier than going to the village workplace, she approached the VACB. “We trapped the officers by applying phenolphthalein powder on the notes given by the woman,” he stated.

Village officer Okay V SanthoshAs quickly as the girl left the village workplace, the VACB officers and two gazetted officers raided the workplace and recovered the powdered notes, which turned pink on being dipped in lime water.

The DySP stated that the girl and earlier than that her father and her grandmother had been going to the village workplace to get the plot regularised for years. “Her father died four months ago after wearing out his shoes and she took over the files,” stated Venugopal.

The girl’s 13-year-old son is confined to mattress due to endosulfan-related ailment, her elder daughter is an undergraduate scholar and her husband is a each day wage labourer.

But these realities didn’t cease the village officer from allegedly demanding Rs 1.5 lakh as a bribe to provoke the method to regularise the land. She negotiated and introduced the bribe quantity all the way down to Rs 50,000.But the agriculture officer of her village informed her that she needn’t give the bribe and he or she was entitled to the land as a result of her household had been utilizing it for the previous 70 years. The land additionally has many coconut and rubber bushes.

According to the Kerala Land Assignment Act, land occupied earlier than August 1971 and never thought of objectionable is assigned to the occupier. The girl’s grandmother owned this land since 1950 and so they have been paying taxes until 2019 when the Village Office stopped accepting taxes as a result of it had gone digital.

All the village officer needed to do was go to the property and put together a report which ought to embrace the quantity and kinds of bushes on it and for a way lengthy the property was of their possession. The tahsildar offers the possession of the land primarily based on the report. “Just to prepare a report, the village officer was demanding a bribe,” stated the DySP.

Village assistant KC MaheshNudged by the agriculture officer, the girl approached the VACB on November 3. “Before taking action, we did a preliminary study and found that the two officers were masters in researching and finding technical flaws to deny land to applicants,” stated the VACB officer. They would then cite these flaws to demand bribes from candidates.

Venugopal stated he had been getting comparable complaints from Padna, Kodom-Bellur, and Kayyur-Cheemeni panchayats. “But no one dares to come forward and help us lay a trap. But this woman did,” he stated.

Village officer Okay V Santhosh and village assistant Okay C Mahesh have been charged with Section 7 (a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act for taking unlawful gratification. If convicted, they might face a jail time period between six months and 5 years and are additionally liable to a fantastic.