2 DTO officials under Haryana Vigilance Bureau lens

Yamunanagar, October 18

Two officials posted at the offices of the District Transport Officer-cum-Secretary, Regional Transport Authority, Yamunanagar and Karnal, are under the State Vigilance Bureau (SVB) lens in connection with allowing safe passage to overloaded heavy vehicles for monetary gains.

POSTED IN YAMUNANAGAR, KARNAL

• One official is posted in Yamunanagar DTO office, while the other is posted in the Karnal office
• They came on the SVB’s radar following the arrest and interrogation of a DTO and four collection agents
• The SVB team has so far arrested five accused in a case of allowing safe passage to overloaded heavy vehicles in lieu of monetary gains

A team of the Karnal SVB has so far arrested DTO-cum-Secretary, RTA, Dr Subhash Chander, four collection agents Ankit Garg, Neeraj Gulati, Manik (alias Lovely) and Sandeep (alias Sonu), all residents of Jagadhri, in connection with the case and recovered bribe amount of Rs 66.93 lakh from their possession.

Dr Subhash was posted as DTO-cum-Secretary, RTA, Yamunanagar, and he had the additional charge of DTO-cum-Secretary, RTA office, Karnal.

Sources said the names of two officials — one is posted at the Yamunanagar office and the other in Karnal—emerged on the SVB’s radar following the arrest and interrogation of the DTO and four collection agents.

Sources said both officials were accused of collecting bribe from transporters, drivers and the owners of overloaded heavy vehicles, therefore the authorities of the SVB were likely to ask the said officials to join the investigation in near future.

The SVB team arrested the DTO on October 15 and obtained his four-day police remand after producing him before a duty magistrate in the Jagadhri District Courts on October 16.

During interrogation, the DTO accepted that he had a list of heavy vehicles from whose owners/drivers they used to get bribe for providing safe passage to overloaded heavy vehicles.

The DTO told the investigating officers of the SVB that he had kept that list at the house of a relative in Chandigarh. The SVB team has to recover the said list.

On the complaint of transporter Akhtar of Rotan village in Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh, a case was registered against DTO-cum Secretary, RTA, Dr Subhash Chander, collection agents Neeraj Gulati, Ankit Garg and Sandeep under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 120-B of the IPC at the SVB police station in Panchkula on October 8.

The SVB team arrested agent Ankit with Rs 40,000 from Jagadhri on October 8. The said amount of the bribe was given to him by the complainant.