Adilabad, July 16 : In a major anti-corruption operation, the officials of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) caught two senior officials of the Irrigation Department red-handed on Thursday while accepting a bribe of Rs.60,000. The accused have been identified as Adilabad Executive Engineer (EE) Rathod Vittal and Assistant Engineer (AE) Rupavath Ramesh.
According to ACB officials, a resident of Sonala mandal had planned to establish a boiler poultry farm on his agricultural land. Because the proposed site was located adjacent to an irrigation sub-canal, a No Objection Certificate (NOC) was required from the department. When the farmer approached the engineers for the NOC, they allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs.1 lakh to clear the file.
Unwilling to pay, the victim approached the ACB, who subsequently laid a trap. The duo was caught in the act of accepting a partial payment of Rs.60,000. Following a positive phenolphthalein test, both engineers were arrested and will be produced before the Special ACB Court in Karimnagar.
Meanwhile, simultaneous ACB searches at the engineers’ residences in Hyderabad and Utnoor have led to the discovery of a locker, with further asset evaluations underway.
Keywords: Adilabad, ACB trap, Irrigation engineers, Rathod Vittal, Rupavath Ramesh, bribery arrest, Anti-Corruption Bureau, No Objection Certificate (NOC), corruption case, asset searches.
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