Woman clerk held for taking bribe

Bhubaneswar: The Vigilance department arrested a junior clerk on Tuesday, a day after she was caught accepting a bribe of Rs 20,000 at the office of the Sub Registrar here. The woman, the junior clerk in the office of the Sub-Registrar of Khandagiri in Bhubaneswar, has been placed under arrest by the Odisha Vigilance department and will be forwarded to the court.

“She was arrested for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 20,000 from a person for the execution of a registered sale deed (RSD) of subplot,” an official statement said. She was detained on Monday and arrested on Tuesday. A case was registered against her.

The Vigilance department officials said as per the trap plan, the complainant went to give the money and the Vigilance officials caught Debajani Kar red-handed while she was accepting the bribe money in her office room. The entire bribe money was recovered from her possession and seized in the presence of witnesses.

Following the trap, simultaneous searches were conducted at the woman’s residence at Old Town in Bhubaneswar and her office room. This apart, the anti-corruption Vigilance officials also recovered Rs 15 lakh in cash from the Sub-Registrar office. The office staff were being examined, and the source of huge cash was being verified.