PALAKKAD: A village field assistant who took a bribe from a person during the revenue adalat in Mannarkad was caught red-handed by vigilance officials on Tuesday. The field assistant of the Palakkayam village office in Palakkad district, V Suresh Kumar, was caught while he was taking bribes.
Subsequently, the raids on his house in Mannarkad in the evening yielded a sum of Rs 36 lakh in cash, fixed deposit certificates of Rs 45 lakh, Rs 22 lakh in savings account deposits and 17 kilograms of coins, Vigilance DySP S Shamsudheen told TNIE.
Shamsudheen said that they suspected that the seized amount was unaccounted money. A report to this effect will be given to the vigilance department, he said.
The complainant was a Manjeri native who owned 45 acres in Palakkayam village. He had gone to the village office for a location certificate for which he had submitted an application earlier. Subsequently, when the status of the certificate was enquired at the village office, they had said that it was with Suresh Kumar, the field assistant.
When the complainant called Suresh Kumar, he demanded a bribe of Rs 2,500 which was to be brought to the venue of the revenue adalat which was underway at the MES Kalladi College on Tuesday. The complainant informed the DySP of the vigilance department, Shamsudheen. A vigilance team laid a trap for Suresh Kumar at the Adalat venue. Later, the complainant, as directed by the vigilance, went to the car of Suresh Kumar and handed over Rs 2,500 to him when the vigilance personnel caught him red-handed.
Six months ago, Suresh took money on two occasions from the same complainant for issuing papers related to the same property. An amount of Rs 10,000 was given for getting a certificate that the land did not belong to a Land Acquisition (LA) title deed and another Rs 9,000 for getting a possession certificate five months ago. Later when the application for a location certificate was submitted, he collected Rs 500 from the complainant. It was after collecting so much money as a bribe that Suresh Kumar demanded another Rs 2,500.
Apart from the DySP, the vigilance team consisted of inspectors Philip, Farook, sub-inspectors Surendran, and Manoj, police officials Satheesh, Sanesh, Santhosh, Balakrishnan and Uwaiz.