A Delhi court has awarded four years’ imprisonment to two employees of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for demanding a bribe of ₹6,000 per month from a man for allowing him to run a dhaba (eatery) outside his DDA flat at Narela in north-west Delhi.
Additional Sessions Judge Ashutosh Kumar convicted the main accused, Mukesh Chander, and sentenced him to one-year imprisonment separately for impersonation.
He had posed as a junior engineer while serving a show cause notice to the dhaba owner for running his business in violation of the rules.
Mukesh worked as a khalasi (helper) in the DDA. The co-accused, Satybir Singh, was an office clerk mate. The two accused were also held guilty and sentenced to various jail terms for other offences. But the court clarified that all the sentences shall run concurrently.
CBI nabs accused
A complaint lodged with the CBI by the dhaba owner said that the complainant had gone to the DDA office after being served a notice.
At the office, the complainant alleged that Mukesh demanded a bribe of ₹6,000 per month to allow him to run the eatery.
The bribe amount was finally settled at ₹5,000 per month with the intervention of the co-accused.
When the eatery owner approached the CBI, the investigating agency laid a trap and caught Mukesh red-handed while demanding and accepting the bribe amount. The co-accused was later called and interrogated.
‘A conspiracy’
Holding the two accused guilty, the Judge said: “It is proved beyond reasonable doubt that Mukesh being a khalasi in the Delhi Development Authority made a bribe demand of ₹6,000 per month from the complainant on September 27, 2016, as a motive or reward for ensuring that no action is taken against the ‘dhaba’ being run by the complainant.”
“It is further proved that a conspiracy was hatched between Mukesh and Satybir, wherein Satybir was to negotiate the bribe amount with the complainant while assuring him that the complaint would be deleted after talking with a senior officer,” the Judge noted.
