New Delhi, Oct 28 (IANS) A CBI court in Ahmedabad on Wednesday convicted and sentenced Satdhari Lal Sahu, the then Archivist at the National Archives of India’s Record Centre in Zalana Dungari, Jaipur, Rajasthan, to three years of Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) and imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 in a bribery case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered the case on December 26, 2012, following allegations that Sahu had demanded illegal gratification from a complainant in exchange for providing copies of official records.
According to the CBI, Sahu had demanded a bribe of Rs 15,000 to provide copies of old CRO records relating to a survey of Rajkot and a file containing old British land records.
The agency subsequently laid a trap and caught Sahu red-handed while he was accepting the bribe of Rs 15,000 from the complainant. He was arrested on December 26, 2012.
Following his arrest, the CBI conducted searches at his residence and office as part of the investigation.
After completing the probe, the agency filed a chargesheet against Sahu on June 28, 2013.
Following the trial, the court convicted him and sentenced him to three years of rigorous imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs 20,000.
In a separate case, the CBI had earlier, on October 23, apprehended two officials of the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) Lucknow Zone in connection with an alleged bribery case involving Rs 5 lakh.
The accused were identified as Enforcement Officer Deepak Kumar and Head Constable Manoj Dwivedi, both posted at the ED’s Lucknow office.
According to a CBI press release, the agency registered a case against the two officials following a complaint alleging a demand for illegal gratification.
The complaint alleged that Dwivedi had demanded a bribe from the complainant’s father in exchange for extending assistance in an Enforcement Directorate case. The complainant’s father had reportedly received two summonses from the ED’s Lucknow Zone in August and September.
Acting on the complaint, the CBI laid a trap on October 23. During the operation, Dwivedi was caught red-handed while demanding and accepting Rs 5 lakh on behalf of Enforcement Officer Deepak Kumar to extend undue favour to the complainant’s father in the ED case.
–IANS
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