Lawyer held taking bribe for govt official

The Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) on Thursday caught an advocate red-handed while accepting a bribe of ₹7,000 on behalf of a naib tehsildar and his reader in Mansa. All the three have been booked for corruption.

A bureau spokesperson said that advocate Suresh Kumar, working at the Bareta tehsil complex in Mansa district, was caught on the complaint of Gurjtej Singh. The complainant had approached Ramesh Kumar, naib tehsildar, Bareta, for mutation of his agricultural land and the latter asked him to contact his reader Jaspal Singh and the advocate for completion of mutation documents. He said that they allegedly demanded bribe on behalf of the naib tehsildar for mutation of the land.

A vigilance team laid a trap and the accused was caught while accepting the bribe from the complainant in the presence of two official witnesses, said the spokesman. A case under sections 7, 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and 120-B of the IPC has been registered against naib tehsildar, reader and advocate at the VB police station here. Further investigation is on.