In the center of this controversy is senior IAS officer Neeraj K Pawan, the chairman of the RSLDC who has been named in several graft scandals and has also spent nearly nine months in jail back five years ago.
The ACB has also seized the mobile phones of Niraj K Pawan and MD Pradeep Gawande, both Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers. Nine offices of RSLDC have also been sealed.
According to the ACB Director General of Police (DGP) BL Soni, the two arrested officials Ashok Sangwan, scheme coordinator, and Rahul Kumar Garg, manager, were caught red-handed while taking a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from the complainant to clear pending bills, totaling 1.5 crores. The bribe was sought in exchange for an offer to clear payment to the firm for work under the skill development scheme, refund of the security amount deposited, and for removing the firm from the black list, said DGP BL Soni.
He further stated that Neeraj K Pawan was on the way to Jodhpur when ACB officials caught him and seized his two phones to find out his involvement in the bribery case. Shockingly, Pawan had allegedly deleted some of his WhatsApp chats before handing over his phones. ACB officials say that they will try to recover the deleted chats in their probe. Further investigation is underway and more arrests are likely to take place.
This is not the first time that Neeraj K Pawan has been involved in a corruption scandal. In 2016, also he was arrested by ACB in connection with a bribery scam.
With his name figuring prominently in the RSLDC bribery scam, all eyes in Rajasthan are now fixed on how the ACB will finally proceed against Neeraj K Pawan.
