Mhada engineer arrested while accepting bribe

Mumbai: The Mumbai Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) apprehended an executive engineer of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) for seeking bribe of Rs 21,000 from a contractor to clear his bill worth Rs 8 lakh.

The ACB officer said that the contractor had repaired cess buildings in Sonapur and had put up the bill and the accused engineer sought two per cent of the bill amount as bribe.

The arrested engineer of Mhada was identified as Suryakant Deshmukh, 55, attached with the C3 department at Chandanwadi. The ACB officials said that the complainant had been repairing the cessed buildings in MSS lane in Sonapur and upon its completion, submitted a bill of Rs 8 lakh. Deshmukh was authorised to clear the bill.

“The public servant however sought for two per cent of the total amount and Rs 5,000 more as vigilance charges from the contractor. The amount was negotiated to Rs 20,000 finally by Deshmukh,” said an ACB officer.

The investigators said that the contractor did not want to pay bribe and hence he approached the ACB and lodged a complaint against Deshmukh. The officials verified the complaint on Tuesday and asked the complainant to fix the meeting on Wednesday.

Deshmukh met the complainant at his Chandanwadi office where he asked the complainant to hand over the bribe to another contractor who was present there in his cabin. Soon after the bribe was paid, the ACB apprehended Deshmukh and the private person with the cash.

The ACB has sent a report to Mhada on the arrest of their officer and have sought for his details from them. They will now question Deshmukh on the bribery and on how many occasions he had sought money illegally.