Rajasthan’s Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on 17 September arrested five people and detained an IAS officer of principal secretary rank in a corruption case, an official of ACB said. “We have so far arrested five people in a corruption case related to mines. Ashok Singhvi, Rajasthan’s principal secretary for mines and petroleum, has been detained. A search is going on in his premises and eventually he is also likely to be arrested,” ACB Inspector General Dinesh M.N. told IANS. Ashok Singhvi is an IAS officer of 1983 batch of Rajasthan cadre. It is learnt that the ACB has sufficient evidence against the IAS officer and ACB officers are searching his Jaipur residence for more clues.
Earlier in the day, the ACB arrested five people from Udaipur and Bhilwara districts, including two officials of the mines department, for taking bribe of Rs.2.55 crore for re-starting six mines closed by the department due to various reasons. The arrested people were Pankaj Gehlot, additional director for mines in Udaipur, Pushkar Raj Amte, senior mining engineer in Bhilwara district, and middlemen Sanjay Sethi, Rashid Khan and Shyam Singh Singhvi.
Navdeep Singh, Director General of ACB, told the media that after working on the information by IGP M N Dinesh, the ACB constituted two teams to raid two different places, in Udaipur and Bhilwara, simultaneously. In Udaipur, the ACB arrested Sanjay Sethi red-handed while he taking the bribe, amounting Rs 2.55 crore in cash. Sethi is allegedly the middleman between the mines department and one Sher Khan, a mine owner in Chittorgarh, whose six mines had been shut down.
Shyam Singh Singhvi is a chartered accountant and he was giving the bribe to middleman Sanjay Sethi on behalf of Sher Khan. During the operation, Pankaj Gehlot, additional director, mines, was also arrested, and he was allegedly supervising the entire deal.
The ACB also recovered Rs 1.25 crore in cash from Sethi’s residence. Subsequently, Ashok Singhvi, senior IAS officer who is the principal secretary of the mines department was taken into custody and it is allegedly suspected that Sanjay Sethi worked for him.
[Image courtesy: udaipurtimes]
Dr. Ashok Singhvi, the IAS officer, is a highly qualified officer with MBA and Ph.D. (Marketing Management) degrees. He is in the rank of Additional Secretary to the Government of India since 12 March 2014 (his posting was as principal secretary under the Government of Rajasthan).
It is reported in the media that a total bribe amount of Rs. 20 crore was fixed, out of which the first instalment was being paid on 16 September when the ACB officers caught the culprits red-handed.
This is perhaps the biggest corruption case in Rajasthan in which so much of bribe was recovered red-handed while the amount was being paid.
