The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption has registered a case against an Inspector and Sub-Inspector in Thanjavur on the charge of demanding a ₹6-crore bribe from a businessmen for not registering a cheating case against him, and receiving ₹10 lakh as an advance.
The DVAC, in its FIR, said the accused police officials dropped the name of the Superintendent of Police, Thanjavur, while demanding ₹1 crore from the businessman for not acting on a cheating complaint and ₹5 crore for protecting him from other complaints for a period of six months.
The case against S. Somasundaram, Inspector of Police, Padanallur police station, Thanjavur district, and then Inspector, Special Branch; and K. Kannan, Sub-Inspector, Tiruvarur, then working in the Boothalur police station in the district, is that they demanded the bribe from M.R. Ganesh, the businessman.
Mr. Ganesh claimed that when he was at a hotel in Coimbatore on April 17, 2021, Mr. Kannan came there to enquire about two complaints relating to non-payment of ₹2.5 crore and ₹38 lakh, lodged by Raghuprasanth of Kumbakonam and Srinivasan of Thanjavur, respectively.
The following day, Mr. Somasundaram and Mr. Kannan informed him that the Thanjavur SP had demanded ₹1 crore for not registering a case on the two complaints and ₹5 crore for not acting on any other complaint lodged in the next six months.
The Inspector demanded the payment of ₹10 lakh immediately as a token for accepting the offer. He asked the SI to stay back with the businessman at the hotel and collect the money once it is arranged the next morning. Mr. Ganesh then made calls to his employees in Kumbakonam and other places to draw money from the company’s bank accounts. A sum of ₹10 lakh was paid to the Inspector and the SI in two instalments of ₹5 lakh each. The bribe was paid at a restaurant close to the SP’s office in Thanjavur.
After establishing prima facie evidence for the allegations made by the businessman, the DVAC registered a case against the accused officials. Mr. Ganesh’s employees corroborated the allegations.
The investigating agency said the Deputy Superintendent of Police, who conducted a separate inquiry into the allegations, had sent a special report to the Thanjavur SP recommending disciplinary action against the Inspector and the SI after he found that they had received ₹10 lakh as a bribe for not acting on the two complaints against the businessman.
