EPF official trapped while accepting bribe

PANJIM, OCT 5
Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Assistant Commissioner M K Farde was today caught red-handed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) while accepting a bribe to settle a legal case against a Goan company.
The alleged tainted officer was eventually arrested. 
CBI-Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) sleuths laid a trap after lunch hours following a complaint filed by the proprietor of Vidhya Industrial Services (VIS) Bharti Roy.
The complainant alleged that Farde demanded Rs 1 lakh to water down a legal case against the manpower providing firm for not depositing its share of PF in accounts of its employees EPF.
“The EPF officer assured the proprietor that he will not only dilute charges against the company but would grant certain benefits as well. For this, he demanded Rs 1 lakh to be paid in installments,” a CBI officer said.
Roy apparently already paid 25 percent of the total demanded amount but she was unable to pay the remaining bribe, after which she approached the CBI. The sleuths were immediately put on the job and on Tuesday evening they planted a decoy with Rs 25,000 to trap the officer.
The PF officer’s telephonic conversations were under surveillance even as his movements were also monitored for a week.
After being caught red handed accepting the second installment of Rs 25,000, Farde was interrogated for more than an hour in his chamber on the third floor of the EPF building at Patto.
The CBI sleuths later escorted him to the CBI office at Bambolim in a hired car. Before getting into the car, Farde told journalists that charges against him were false and that he was framed.
“I have not done anything wrong. The lady (decoy cum witness) came with the money and kept on the table. I did not even touch the cash bundle. I am falsely targeted…it is revenge against me for not helping the firm,” he told the waiting journalists outside the EPF office.