PCS officer wanted in graft case surrenders

The Punjab Civil Services (PCS) officer posted as assistant labour commissioner at Hoshiarpur, Harpreet Singh, who was wanted in a corruption case, surrendered before the vigilance bureau (VB) on Thursday.

ALC Harpreet Singh had been absconding for the past three months, officials said.

On November 8, the VB had arrested his computer operator taking a bribe of ₹30,000 from a local shopkeeper. The complainant had produced a voice recording in which the PCS officer allegedly demanded the money to clear a case. When a VB team raided his office, he managed to flee.

The complainant had told the vigilance bureau that he owns a jewellery shop, which he got renovated recently. Subsequently, he received a notice from the office of the assistant labour commissioner.

When he visited the office, Alka informed him that he would face a substantial fine, but she could help to resolve the matter by discussing it with the ALC, the complainant alleged.

The complainant mentioned that Alka Sharma took the notice from him and went into Harpreet’s office.

Shortly after, the complainant was also called into the office, where Harpreet demanded a bribe of R 30,000 in exchange for dismissing the notice, officials said citing the complaint.

The complainant recorded the conversation related to the bribe demand and submitted it as evidence to the Bureau.

Following a preliminary verification, the vigilance bureau team laid a trap during which the accused Alka was caught red-handed while accepting the R30,000 bribe from the complainant, they said.

A corruption case was registered against ALC and his computer operator, Alka Sharma, who was caught red-handed. Deputy superintendent of police (VB) Manish Kumar said that the PCS officer surrendered after his bail plea was rejected by the Punjab and Haryana high court, and VB teams were raiding his premises.

He said the officer was produced in the court, which remanded him to one-day police custody.

With inputs from PTI