Pune: Caught taking bribe, clerk gobbles cash

PUNE: A junior clerk at the Shivajinagar district and sessions court here gobbled three currency notes of Rs 500 denomination, which he had accepted as a bribe, after the state anti-corruption bureau (ACB) officials zeroed in on him on Thursday afternoon.
However, the ACB officials managed to recover the notes. “Our officials quickly got the clerk to bend and pressed his nose, following which he brought out the notes,” said Sandeep Diwan, superintendent of police, ACB, Pune.
“The notes soiled with his saliva were recovered and wrapped in a plastic pouch. They are being sent for a chemical analyser test as they are valuable evidence for us in the case,” an ACB official associated with the action said.
The ACB later arrested the clerk, Prasannakumar Bhagwat (50), for allegedly demanding and accepting the bribe of Rs 1,500 from a 31-year-old Bibvewadi resident for giving him a photocopy of a chargesheet in a case registered by his brother with the Bibvewadi police.
According to the ACB official, the complainant had approached Bhagwat a week ago with the request for the photocopy of the chargesheet. Normally, such photocopies are provided free of cost to those associated with a case like the complainant, victim, accused or witnesses, he said.
However, Bhagwat made the complainant visit his office in the court premises several times and kept promising to give him the photocopy. During one such visit, Bhagwat allegedly demanded Rs 1,500 from the complainant to issue the photocopy, the ACB official said. The complainant approached the ACB.
An ACB team first verified the bribery demand and got the complainant to strike a deal with the clerk for making the payment around 4pm near the entrance of court no. 5. The ACB laid a trap at the spot.
The ACB men zeroed in on Bhagwat soon after he accepted the three currency notes from the complainant. Sensing trouble, Bhagwat immediately gobbled the notes and started chewing them. However, the officials got him to throw up the notes.
An offence of criminal misconduct by a public servant and other charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered with the Shivajinagar police.