THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) will recommend the state government to initiate action against 112 employees of the Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) for corrupt practices. Of these, departmental action will be recommended against 72 officials, while vigilance enquiry will be suggested against 40 others. The action follows state-level raids in 81 RTO and sub-RTOs held from July 19 onwards where massive financial irregularities were detected.
During the raids, the VACB sleuths had found that 21 MVD officials collectively received Rs 7.84 lakh from agents via UPI accounts. The cops had also nabbed 11 agents when they came to distribute bribes to the MVD staff. A sum of Rs 1.4 lakh was also seized from those agents.
In the subsequent probe it was found that the corrupt officers had collected cash from agents through their UPI accounts as well as that of their family members. The vigilance sources said the MVD officers were bribed in return for providing illegal assistance to driving school owners.
The inquiry detected that the officers under scanner had maintained an unholy nexus with the agents. The agents provided the MVD officials with the details of the candidates, whose applications were filed via driving schools. The MVD officials were found to have contacted the agents through social media platforms, informing them of favourable action taken on applications endorsed by them.