Lokayukta official held for taking Rs 25,000 bribe from constable

 A first-division assistant in the Lokayukta office here was arrested on Thursday for taking a bribe of Rs 25,000 from a constable for not raking up an old corruption case against him.

Officials of the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested Sunkanna, a judgement writer at Additional Registrar of Enquiries - 1 in the Lokayukta office, on the basis of a complaint filed by a constable attached to the APMC police station in Ballari.

The constable, whose identity has been withheld by the ACB, had been trapped in 2011 in a corruption case and prosecuted by the Lokayukta police. But the court acquitted him later, and the Lokay-ukta police didn’t go in for appeal.

The constable, however, faced a departmental enquiry that was initiated following the trap in 2011.

Sunkanna reportedly tried to take advantage of the pending departmental enquiry and started asking him for bribe. He contacted the constable through the latter’s colleague, Sudhakar.

“Sunkanna claimed that because of his intervention, the Lokayukta police had not filed an appeal against the constable’s acquittal. He would call up Sudhakar and ask him to demand a bribe of Rs 34,000 from the constable,” an official said.

Upset by the repeated demands, the constable wrote to the Lokayukta, Justice P Vishwanath Shetty, and brought to his notice how an official in his office was demanding bribe. Justice Shetty forwarded the letter to the ADGP (ACB), N S Megharikh.

The trap

The ACB registered an FIR and laid a trap. On Thursday, they asked the constable to pay a bribe of Rs 25,000 to Sudhakar in Ballari. The ACB caught Sudhakar red-handed. Another team of the ACB arrested Sunkanna from the Lokayukta office in Bengaluru.