Hyderabad: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) authorities on Wednesday arrested an additional collector for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 1.12 crore for granting a no-objection certificate (NOC) to a person in a land transaction.
Apart from Medak district’s additional collector G Nagesh, the ACB authorities also arrested three other revenue officials B Aruna Reddy, Narsapur revenue divisional officer, Abdul Sattar, tehsildar (block revenue officer) of Chilpiched block and Mohd Waseem Ahmed, junior assistant in the office of Medak Survey and Land Records, for assisting the additional collector.
One Kola Jeevan Goud, a suspected benami of the additional collector, was also arrested. “They will be produced before the special court for ACB cases in Hyderabad on Thursday,” an official statement from the director-general of Telangana ACB said.
The ACB authorities acted on a complaint filed by one K Linga Murthy on August 22 stating that he had approached the revenue officials of Medak district for issuing a NOC for purchasing of 112.21 acres of land at Chippalaturthi village of Narsapur block in February this year.
The complainant mentioned that the additional collector demanded Rs 1.12 crore as a bribe at the rate of Rs 1 lakh per acre to issue NOC for the transaction. Two installments of the demanded bribe worth Rs 40 lakh were paid by the complainant by the first week of August. However, Murthy could not arrange cash for the remaining amount of bribe to the additional collector.
Instead, Nagesh asked him to register five acres of land in the name of his benami Kola Jeevan Goud and obtained an Agreement of Sale dated August 21 for the same. “G Nagesh also took eight signed blank cheques from Murthy as surety till the registration of land,” the ACB statement read.
The complainant also paid Rs 5 lakh to the other staff members including Waseem Ahmed, B Aruna Reddy and Abdul Sattar as per the instructions of the additional collector, for processing the file and completing the pending survey work.