Excise dept clerk arrested for graft

The Vigilance Bureau (VB) has arrested Sanjiv Malhotra, clerk, posted in the Excise and Taxation Department, Kapurthala, for accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000 and demanding Rs 20,000 more. Inspector in the department Jatinderpal Singh had already been arrested. The clerk had been evading arrest for two months.

Disclosing this here today, a spokesperson of the VB said a case had been registered against the accused on a complaint filed by Neeraj Sharma, a resident of Mohalla Kiampura, Kapurthala, on the CM’s Anti Corruption Action Line.

He said the complainant had disclosed in his complaint that he was running an electronic shop at Kiampura and had sold a cooler in April 2024 to a customer and a dispute arose. The accused had intervened to settle a dispute. He further alleged that both accused had asked him on his mobile phone to come with his accountant in the office where they demanded a bribe of Rs 45,000 from him to settle irregularities of the bill.

The complainant said clerk Sanjiv Malhotra had demanded a bribe of Rs 1 lakh but the deal was struck at Rs 30,000. He had taken Rs 10,000 as the first instalment and now they were demanding Rs 20,000. The complainant recorded a conversation on the phone with the accused and submitted it to the VB as an evidence.