Security personnel at the West Gate of Vidhana Soudha caught a Junior Engineer with the Public Works Department carrying unaccounted cash ₹10 lakh on him, January 4 evening. The official J. Jagadeesh was arrested by the police on Thursday evening, after he appeared for an investigation but allegedly did not cooperate with the probe, sources said.
The incident has given ammunition for the political opposition Congress to allege the incident was only the latest evidence that under the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, corruption was unchecked and Vidhana Soudha had itself become a “den of corruption”. In a series of tweets, Karnataka Congress alleged: “Under the BJP government, Vidhana Soudha has become like a shopping mall and ministers have opened shops. With 40% commission, everything is on sale here. The latest incident of an officer being caught with ₹10 Lakh is evidence to all of this.”
J. Jagadeesh was frisked and the money was discovered by security personnel at the West Gate of Vidhana Soudha on Wednesday evening at around 5:50 p.m. The officer told the police that he was on his way to Mandya where the money was intended for, but he had made a brief stop in Vidhana Soudha to finish an official work. However, he neither gave an explanation as to why he was carrying such a huge amount of cash on him nor divulged the source of the cash, police said. “We seized the cash and booked a case on Wednesday evening and served a notice to the officer to appear for investigation on Thursday. But even on Thursday, the officer failed to provide a satisfactory explanation and was not cooperating with the investigation. So he was arrested,” a senior official said.
It may be recalled that the security personnel at Vidhana Soudha had intercepted a car belonging to an advocate carrying hard cash worth ₹1.9 crore in October 2016.
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