Granted registries for cash, tehsildar lands in ACB net

Gurgaon: Haryana anti-corruption bureau on Thursday arrested a tehsildar currently posted in the city for alleged irregularities in granting registries and accepting bribes amounting to Rs 40 lakh.
Action was taken after an anonymous complaint was made against the tehsildar, who holds additional charge of Manesar tehsil, in December 2022.
The complainant said Darpan Kamboj accepted a bribe of Rs 40 lakh from a property dealer for illegally granting registry of land in Gurgaon’s Daultabad. Kamboj was posted at Harsaru tehshil at the time.
During the investigation, ACB found that Kamboj showed industrial land of Daultabad as agricultural land in return for the bribe, officials said on Friday. The circle rates for industrial and agricultural land are vastly different. This led to a loss of Rs 2.27 crore to the exchequer, they said.
The case was filed in January and Kamboj was arrested from the Gurgaon tehsil office on Thursday. Officials said the Daultabad resident, Harish – who owned the industrial plot and allegedly paid the bribe – was also taken into custody.
During the interrogation, Kamboj could not give satisfactory answers to allegations of illegal registries, officials said. “The matter is under investigation,” said a senior ACB official.
The accused has been booked under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The Haryana government this February renamed the state vigilance bureau as the anti-corruption bureau.
Last year, the state vigilance bureau arrested an average of 16 government officials every month on corruption charges across the state. A total of 193 government officials, including 27 gazetted officers and 166 non-gazetted officials, and 27 civilians were arrested by the bureau in 2022.
Bribes of more than Rs 6 crore were recovered and 246 cases – the highest for a year in the last decade — were registered. Of the 246 cases, 170 were registered after raids and 76 after inquiries. Officials say the bureau has shifted its focus from corruption by junior level staff such as clerks, patwaris, linesman and police personnel to senior rank officials.