ACB arrests former Bengaluru DC J Manjunath in bribery case

The former Bengaluru District Collector has been charged with accepting a bribe to pass to favour an individual in connection with a land ownership litigation.

Bengaluru: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Monday arrested a former District Collector of Bengaluru city for accepting a bribe to give an order in favour of the complainant in a case related to the land ownership litigation. As per an order issued by the Karnataka government on Friday, the arrested IAS officer J. Manjunath-who is been facing an ACB probe in a bribery case- was transferred from the post of Bengaluru City Collector to the post of the Director of Integrated Child Development Scheme.

The ACB had arrested District Collector Office Manager Mahesh and Court Division Assistant Chetan Kumar alias Chandru on May 21, while they were receiving a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from Azam Pasha, a resident of Begur, to give a favourable order in a case related to the ownership of 38 acres of land in Kudlu village of Anekal taluk.

“I had met the Collector to request him to publish the order of the case related to my land and met with Mahesh as per his instructions,” Azam Pasha mentioned in his complaint against Mahesh demanding bribe. The complainant had also recorded the details of the conversation with the Collector and Mahesh on his mobile phone and gave them to the investigating agency along with the complaint.

Although Mahesh and Chetan Kumar received the bribe money, it was found during the investigation that the file related to the complainant was directed to the Collector. “It was found that the order was not published even three months after the completion of the case investigation,” officials noted.

Manjunath has been named the third accused in the case after the ACB officials interrogated the IAS officer for the whole day on June 22 and June 30. The said arrest was undertaken by a team led by ACB’s Deputy Superintendent of Police K. A Ravishankar at 3 PM today in Karnataka’s Yeswanthpur. ( with Agency inputs)