KOCHI: The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has booked three officials at the Eloor surveillance station of Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) in a graft case. Earlier, the bureau had arrested two environment officers in Kottayam for demanding bribes from a businessman and the following raid on their residences led to the recovery of several lakhs of rupees.
This time, the VACB Ernakulam Range team has re-registered a case which was first lodged at Eloor police station. The range has an environmental surveillance station at Eloor, where a large number of factories operate, to check pollution levels in the Periyar.
The VACB team has taken over the probe against environmental engineer Thrideep Kumar, assistant environmental engineer Eby Varghese and office assistant Beetha. “The corruption took place in the form of salary given to temporary employee P V Suresh. Suresh was the driver at the surveillance station. His salary was given after vouchers were generated every month.
The graft was reported in September 2016, after the three accused persons conspired and generated three vouchers for Rs 19,500, Rs 18,000 and Rs 15,600. Of these, only Rs 19,500 was paid to Suresh. The other two voucher amounts totalling Rs 33,600 were taken by the three officers,” stated in the FIR.
The case was registered under Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act committing the offence of criminal misconduct. Similarly, the VACB also charged IPC Sections 420 of cheating and 409 for criminal breach of trust by the public servant.
“We are checking whether there was any graft in the disbursal of salary to other temporary workers. Similarly, the income earned by the three accused officials is also under the scanner. We would collect the statements of witnesses in the case soon,” an official said.