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.
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Mukesh worked as a
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.
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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.