Singh said that two
officials at the post office, Santosh Kumar Saroj (Supervisor) and Suraj Mishra
(postal assistant), told them that they will have to pay Rs 100 for every Rs
20,000 deposited.
The Central
Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against two postal
department officials in Uttar Pradesh’s Pratapgarh district for demanding a
bribe of Rs 100 from a commission agent.
The FIR, a copy of which has been reviewed
by HT, was registered on November 30 on a complaint filed by Prabhat Kumar
Singh, a resident of Kunda town in Pratapgarh. Singh said his wife Shubha
worked as a commission agent for the Kunda post office. He said he would often
accompany Shubha to the post office to deposit money collected from individuals
investing in post office savings schemes.
Singh said that two officials at the post
office, Santosh Kumar Saroj (Supervisor) and Suraj Mishra (postal assistant),
told them that they will have to pay Rs 100 for every Rs 20,000 deposited. The
FIR says that when Singh went to deposit Rs 60,000 on his wife’s behalf on
November 27, the duo allegedly charged Rs 300 bribe.
They had also allegedly threatened to stop
Shubha’s work if they were not paid, said the FIR. On verification, CBI found
the allegations to be true. A retired CBI officer said, “Although the amount
involved doesn’t make a difference in a prevention of corruption act case, a
premier agency like CBI, which is already short-staffed and has hundreds of
probes involving thousands of crores, investigating a Rs100 bribery case puts
further stress on its resources.”
According to Central Vigilance
Commission’s 2018 report, CBI is short of 1,312 officers. CBI refused to
comment officially but an officer requesting anonymity said, “No case is big or
small for us, we treat all cases equally.”
A CBI spokesperson said, “CBI intervened
in a public complaint where poor villagers had to bribe to get their own money
deposited (in the post office). There was a need to assist the poor rural
people. This modus operandi impacted several villages.”
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