Palatial houses in Vijayanagar, Hebbal raided; Caught while accepting a bribe of Rs. 5,000
Mysore/Mysuru: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths trapped a Junior Engineer (JE) of Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs. 5,000 from a woman. According to the ACB, though the seizure amount is Rs. 5,000, the officer has allegedly amassed crores of rupees through ill-gotten means.
The JE has been identified as Chandrashekar, working with MCC Zone-6 and 7. He was trapped last evening while accepting the bribe from Gowramma. He had allegedly threatened Gowramma of demolishing the compound wall of her house that has been constructed violating rules. The bribe was demanded to stop the demolishing act.
After the trapping and based on vital clues, the ACB sleuths raided Chandrashekar’s palatial houses at Vijayanagar and Hebbal. The raiding teams were stunned to find the amount of properties, the JE had made that are grossly disproportionate to his known sources of income. ACB sleuths said that he has a couple of more properties apart from the houses in Vijayanagar and Hebbal that are worth crores of rupees.
The complainant Gowramma, a resident of Nachanahalli, had got a house (No.77) from Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) at Naidunagar, Kesare Second Stage. She later gave the house to her daughter Asha as a gift. After some years, Asha demolished the MUDA house and constructed a new one.
Demand for bribe
Recently, Asha and Gowramma had complained to the MCC Zone-7 office that kitchen smoke from their neighbour’s house was entering their house. Based on the complaint, JE Chandrashekar visited the house on Feb. 6 and told Gowramma and Asha that they had encroached 5-ft land that belonged to their neighbour.
Chandrashekar told Gowramma that the compound wall they had constructed had to be demolished as the land rightfully belonged to their neighbour. He later demanded Rs. 10,000 to stop the demolition. Fearing consequences, Gowramma paid Rs. 5,000 on that day. Not stopping at this, Chandrashekar, on Feb. 9, again demanded Rs. 5,000 and Gowramma complained to the ACB.
Chandrashekar handles a major part of MCC Zone-6 and 7 and yesterday, he was at his Office. As per plans of ACB, Gowramma told Chandrashekar that she would pay Rs. 5,000 at his office. Accordingly, the ACB laid a trap and Chandrashekar was caught while accepting the money. The raid was led by ACB Dy.SP H. Parashuramappa, Inspectors M. Kareem Ravathar and K.S. Niranjan.
Amassing wealth
Chandrashekar has been working in the MCC since many years and the 52-year-old officer had allegedly amassed wealth worth crores of rupees. He has a palatial house in Vijayanagar and he lives in its duplex floor while he has rented out the ground floor.
He owns another residential complex at Hebbal where he has rented out five houses and has reserved one house for himself. He owns expensive furniture in his houses and they are worth lakhs of rupees. ACB sleuths have information that Chandrashekar has many more properties and records are being unearthed to assess his wealth. Information about his bank accounts, jewellery, vehicles and other valuables are being collected.
When people are in the same department for years, they exploit the situation of their seniors being transferred. Time, right from a peon to the office superintendent do not remain in the same office for more tahn 5 years. All corrupt officers should be weeded out to have clean governance.
Which dpt is not corrupt ?5his 5000 is a pittance, every one knows that if any work is to be done in any government office it will not be done without paying bribe its a sad reality .
sack these officers without second thought and set an example.
no officer should dare ask for bribes from the public.
conduct and complete the enquiry in 3 months when this incident is still fresh in public memory.
i am sure nothing of this sort will happen. this is India.
when a CM of a state was in jail for corruption ! What you expect from Govt officials ?