PANJIM: Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) on Friday arrested Dattaram Gawade alias Damu, employed as a peon at Directorate of Transport, while accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from an Assistant Motor Vehicle Inspector to settle a service matter.
ACB said Gawade, attached to the Transport Director’s office, was allegedly demanding Rs 5 lakh to settle the service issues of the AMVI on behalf of a top transport officer. ACB has placed him under arrest after seizing the Rs 1 lakh cash with him in the Transport department office at Junta House, Panjim.
Gawade had asked the AMVI to give him the cash by August 31 failing which the top officer working on the case would trap him in the inquiry. The complainant agreed to the deal and simultaneously complained to ACB and a trap was laid.
Gawade had asked the AMVI to deliver the cash in the Transport department office before 9 am. The complainant and ACB arrived at 8.30 am and trapped Gawade at 8.45 am with the Rs 1 lakh.
ACB said that the accused has been arrested and an offence has been registered against him under Section 7, 12, 13(1)(d) r/w 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
The complainant AMVI was facing a departmental inquiry after he was arrested by cyber cell of Crime Branch in an identity theft case under the IT Act for sending emails using the official email ID of Assistant Director of Transport Uday Gauns.
Interestingly, Gauns was arrested by ACB while accepting a bribe of Rs 90,000 from a transport contractor last month.
However, the mail highlighting malpractices of Transport officers, was sent to Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, the Public Grievance Cell and Transport region heads. The mail had detailed corrupt practices in the department and even named officers involved in corruption at various places across Goa.
The transfers of 16 Transport officers issued on July 21, 2015 is allegedly linked with the names listed in the email sent on May 26, 2015 by misusing the official email of the assistant director of transport enforcement North Goa.
Though the email was sent by misusing the official email ID of the Transport officer, for which the AMVI’s wife has been booked by the police’s cyber cell and an offence registered, the contents of the email are yet to be verified.
In the last three years this is the fourth arrest in the Transport department made by ACB officers accepting bribes.
