ACB catches irrigation department officials accepting bribes in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: An executive engineer, assistant engineers, and a surveyor from the irrigation department were caught by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Friday in Hyderabad for accepting a bribe of Rs 1,00,000.

On May 30, 2024, Executive Engineer Bhansi Lal, Assistant Engineer K Karthik, and AE Nikhesh Kumar at the Office of the Superintending Engineer, Irrigation Circle, Ranga Reddy, situated at Red Hills, Hyderabad, and P. Ganesh, Surveyor, MRO Office, Gandipet, were caught by ACB, Hyderabad City Unit-2, when they were accepting the bribe amount of Rs 1,00,000 from the complainant, Bommu Upendranath Reddy, a resident of Neknampur, Manikonda, Ranga Reddy District.

They demanded money for doing an official favour, i.e., to process and forward the NOC permission file for the construction of a building at Neknampur, Manikonda, for the complainant. The accused initially demanded Rs. 2,50,000 and initially accepted Rs. 1,50,000 as an advance. The officials later demanded and accepted Rs. 40,000 for conducting a survey. The accused officers were found performing their public duties improperly and dishonestly.

The bribe amount of Rs 65,000 was recovered from the possession of AO-1 at his instance, and Rs 35,000 from the possession of AO-3 at his instance. Both hand fingers of both the AOs yielded positive results in chemical tests.

They were arrested by the ACB officials and will be produced before the Prl. Special Judge for SPE and ACB cases, Court at Nampally, Hyderabad. The case is under investigation.

The ACB department has garnered a lot of praise from the public for quickly apprehending corrupt officials who demanded cash for official benefits.

Call the ACB toll-free number

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has appealed to the public to immediately report such incidents. The public can call the toll-free number of the ACB, i.e., 1064, to take action as per the law in case of a demand for bribes by any public servant.