IAS officer arrested in Rajasthan NRHM bribery case

Yash Goyal

Jaipur, May 30

Senior IAS officer Neeraj K Pawan and additional director, NRHM-IEC, Anil Kumar Agrawal were on Monday arrested in connection with the NRHM bribery case after 11 days of interrogation by ACB at its office.

An ACB team led by IG VK Singh arrested Pawan during interrogation at the Bureau headquarters, while Agarwal was arrested from some other place following investigations into the alleged irregularities and Rs 1.5 crore NRHM-IEC bribery case, a spokesperson said.

Pawan, a 2003-batch IAS officer, was till recently commissioner in Agriculture Department. He was awaiting a new posting after the ACB registered a case of bribery and irregularities in the NRHM when he was posted as its top boss.

On May 18, ACB arrested chief accounts officer Deepa Gupta, storekeeper Joji Vergheese and Ajit Kumar Soni, contractor and a functionary in state BJP media unit, for allegedly manipulating tenders and taking hefty bribes.

In last 11 days, ACB teams had made massive searches in the offices and residences of the accused and went through hundreds of files while interrogating Pawan and others.

The complainant had got work order worth nearly Rs 7 crore in which officials allegedly had a 17 per cent cut.

The case was registered under Prevention of Corruption Act against five accused.