Three officials from the Urban Development Department (UDD) —a deputy secretary, a section officer and a stenographer — were held by the anti-corruption bureau (ACB) for accepting a bribe of '50,000 after a complaint by a deputy commissioner in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The complainant had been pursuing the accused for issuing a letter revoking his suspension after being given a clean chit in a departmental inquiry against him. On Friday, the ACB laid a trap and held section officer Udaysingh Chavan, deputy secretary Anandrao Jivne and stenographer Subhash More at the UDD’s office at CR2 building in Nariman Point. The complainant, a deputy commissioner with the PMC, and four officers had earlier been suspended in connection with a vegetable market development scheme. However, the complainant and two officers were proven innocent in the inquiry. This is when PMC commissioner Mahesh Pathak wrote to Jivne on August 8 asking him to issue a letter ordering reinstatement of the three officers. “The complainant had been meeting the accused for the past two months to issue the reinstatement letter to the municipal body. Jivne and Chavan, however, later demanded '1 lakh for issuing the letter. The complainant filed a case with us on September 27. The amount was negotiated down to '75,000 and the accused asked him to pay the first installment of '50,000 when we held them. They will be produced in court on Saturday,” said additional commissioner of police (ACB), Rameshkumar Mor.
