Senior JDA officials under lens in bribery case: Agency | Jaipur News

JAIPUR: A day after Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested six Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) officials and a private person in connection with a bribery case Related to land conversion, agency officials on Saturday said some senior civic body officials are also under scrutiny.
JDA is planning to take deputy commissioner of zone 9 and other senior officials in for questioning regarding the long pendency of land-related files, which resulted in rampant corruption in the JDA. The ACB has seized many conversion files found on the tables of the officials who were arrested.
Sources said the arrested officials have implicated their seniors in the racket.
DG (ACB) Dr Ravi Prakash Meharda said the senior JDA officials, under whose supervision the arrested officials were working, will be taken in for questioning. “We would investigate whether it was just supervisory negligence or direct involvement of senior officials of zone 9 in corruption,” he said.
The JDA had arrested tehsildar Laxmikant Gupta, ‘girdawar’ (revenue official) Rukmani, ‘girdawar’ Shriram Sharma, ‘patwari’ Ravikant Sharma, junior engineer Khemraj Meena, ‘patwari’ Vimla, and her husband Mahesh Meena.
The six JDA officials and the private person were produced before a magistrate on Saturday. Four JDA officials and Mahesh Meena were remanded in three-day police custody, while two accused women officials, Rukmani and Vimla Meena, were remanded in judicial custody.
An ACB official said corruption was widespread in JDA. It was found that for moving a land conversion file, officials demanded bribes at every stage of the process.
Meharda said, “We have had zone 9 officials under surveillance for the last 14-15 days and have gathered conclusive evidence against each of the JDA officials trapped on Friday as they were openly demanding bribes. The involvement of senior JDA officials of zone 9 in the corruption cannot be ruled out.”
After the raid on Friday, the ACB officials questioned and searched about 50 employees who were present in the offices of zone 9.
Sources also revealed that the ACB complainant had submitted an application for 90-A land conversion from agricultural to commercial purposes. Whoever official he approached in JDA, whether it was the tehsildar, patwari, or girdawar, they demanded bribes. The husband of one of the patwaris acted as a mediator and assured him that his work would be done if he paid Rs 13 lakh. The plot for which the conversion was sought is located in Jagatpura area.