Hyderabad: A Municipal Assistant Engineer in Peddapally district was caught by the Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday, July 14, while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 2 lakh from a contractor for processing and forwarding a final bill related to a municipal development project.
According to the ACB, Kallepalli Sathish Kumar, 33, son of Rajaiah and Assistant Engineer at the Peddapally Municipal Office, allegedly demanded the bribe from the contractor for processing and forwarding the final bill of Rs 12.28 lakh to the Telangana Urban Finance and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TUFIDC), Hyderabad, for sanction.
The bill pertained to the development of the Hindu graveyard at Tenuguwada and the graveyard on Kunaram Road in Peddapally town under Package-IX of the Peddapally Municipality. The work had already been executed by the contractor.
Acting on a complaint, officials of the ACB’s Karimnagar Unit laid a trap and caught the engineer at his residence while he was allegedly accepting the bribe. The tainted amount of Rs 2 lakh was recovered from his possession.
During subsequent searches at the officer’s residence, the ACB seized unaccounted cash of Rs 32,31,900.
The ACB stated that the officer had performed his duty improperly and dishonestly to obtain undue advantage of his official position by demanding illegal gratification for extending an official favour. He was taken into custody, arrested and produced before the Special Judge for SPE and ACB Cases in Karimnagar.
The identity of the complainant has been withheld by the ACB for security reasons. Further investigation is underway.
The ACB has urged the public to report any bribe demands by public servants on its toll-free number 1064, or through WhatsApp on 9440446106, Facebook and X (Telangana ACB), adding that the identity of complainants will be kept confidential.
