A case of demanding a bribe of Rs 10 lakh by two councillors of Aam Aadmi Party has come to light. One of them has also been arrested. The money was demanded from the person running a parking lot at Surat Municipal Corporation’s place to not cancel the contract. An FIR has been registered against both of them under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Of these, accused Vipul Suhagiya has been arrested, while his associate Jitendra Kachadia is still absconding. ACB SP GV Padheria said that Jitendra is being traced.
The ACB said that the Surat civic body has built a multi-level parking facility under town planning. For this, the complainant was given a contract to provide parking facility. The corporation had also provided space for a vegetable market next to the parking facility. Two AAP councillors came to the area and accused the contractor of encroaching on the land of the vegetable market. For this, they also threatened to complain to the police and cancel the contract.
The contractor was forced to write an apology letter by threatening him. He was also asked to pay a bribe of Rs 11 lakh for not cancelling the contract. ACB said that the councillors talked about the bribe over the phone. The amount fixed for this was Rs 10 lakh. During the phone conversation, the councillors used the word document for money. But the contractor recorded this conversation. They took the call recording to ACB. They started the preliminary investigation on this basis.
After this, during investigation, the accused confessed that the word document was used for money. Later, forensic science found in its investigation that there was no tampering in the CD submitted by the contractor. The call recording also confirms that the councillors had demanded bribe. Therefore, on the basis of this investigation, a complaint was filed against both the councillors for demanding a bribe of Rs 10 lakh.
