The arrest of seven officials attached to a zonal office of Mysore City Corporation (MCC) were arrested and their subsequent release, following a raid by Lokayukta police recently, has had little bearing on the staff.
On Thursday, Jawaraiah, a health inspector at the main office of the city corporation was caught red-handed by Lokayukta sleuths, when he was accepting a bribe of Rs 1,000 towards a favour.
Interestingly, in this case, the complainant was a pourakarmika, who was forced to grease the palms of his boss for his salary.
In his complaint at the office of Lokayukta SP on July 22, Manikanta, the pourakarmika, had alleged that he had to bribe his boss every month to facilitate his salary. In the previous month, Manikanta had been involved in fogging to control mosquitoes at the storm water drains of wards six and seven.
Jawaraiah had then too allegedly demanded Rs 2,000 towards the release of salary.
On July 23, Manikanta had paid Rs 1,000 against the total Rs 2,000 demanded by Jawaraiah. On Thursday, as per the directions of Lokayukta police, Manikanta paid the remaining sum to Jawaraiah, who was trapped in no time.
The recent incident came as a rude shock to fellow staff at the main office, especially at a time when the Commissioner P G Ramesh is on leave. Ramesh has gone on 10 days leave.
Inter-shuffle
Earlier, when the seven officials of a zonal office including the assistant commissioner (in-charge) was arrested by the same Lokayukta police, on the allegations of delay in official duty, the Commissioner had taken serious note of it.
This had also had repercussions, with internal shuffling and transfer of all assistant revenue officers (AROs) of the nine zonal offices, and revenue inspectors.
The Commissioner had also held a meeting of the department heads warning them against unnecessary delay in clearing files.
As a result, the clearance of files gathered pace and 80 pc of files remain cleared, said another official preferring anonymity.