By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 25 Jun: The State Vigilance Department today arrested Assistant Commissioner of the State GST Tax Department, Shashikant Dubey while accepting a bribe of Rs 75,000 from a trader. The Vigilance team arrested the Assistant Commissioner from his office located at Laxmi Road here today. Following his arrest, the Vigilance team also raided the house of the Assistant Commissioner located on Canal Road, here, which continued till late evening.
It may be recalled that earlier also, officers and employees of the State Tax, Minor Irrigation Department, Forest Department, Electricity Department and Food Supply Department have been arrested by the Vigilance Department on charges of accepting bribes but there has been no decline in such cases.
Following the arrest of Dubey, Senior Superintendent of Police, Vigilance, Dhirendra Singh Gunjyal announced a cash reward to the trap team.
Dubey was arrested today by the Vigilance Team at the GST Office at Laxmi Road in Dalanwala here while accepting the bribe. Sources claimed that Dubey had been harassing a restaurant owner claiming some major deficiencies in the billing of the restaurant and demanding a bribe to “settle” the case. A case has been registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 (Amendment Act-2018) in this regard against Dubey. The restaurant owner filed a complaint in this regard on which the Vigilance Department took action and laid a trap at the GST Office in Dehradun. Dubey was caught red handed while accepting the bribe. During the raid at the residence of Dubey, the State Vigilance Department has been searching for records of movable and immovable properties owned by Dubey and has also been interrogating him.
The restaurant in question had opened just six months ago on Rajpur Road. The accused in this case, Dr Shashikant Dubey, is a 2015 batch PCS Officer of Uttarakhand cadre.
In the last few years, many cases of corruption have been exposed in different departments of Uttarakhand. Though the state government claims to provide a clean and corruption free administration and Zero Tolerance to corruption, the fact that bribe in this case was being accepted in the GST Office indicates how openly bribes are demanded and accepted by the officials.
It may also be reminded here that, on the instructions of the Chief Minister, a Toll Free Number 1064 has also been issued to register complaints of corruption. Under this helpline, a complaint can be filed in case any employee or officer in any government department asks for any kind of bribe from the general public. However, this Toll Free Number too does not seem to be a strong enough deterrent for the corrupt officials as it is business as usual for them.
