Bihar Panchayat official faces probe over 'liquor party' in office
Darpan News Desk IANS, 25 Mar, 2022 10:23 AM
Patna, March 25 (IANS) The Patna district administration has launched an enquiry against the Secretary of a Panchayat for allegedly organising a liquor party in a government office, an official said on Friday.
Block Development Officer, Bihta, Vishal Anand, has written a letter to the Panchayati Raj Ministry for action against accused Panchayat Secretary Bhim Kumar.
"A video of a Panchayat secretary surfaced before district administration on Friday where he was consuming liquor and a semi-nude girl was also present there. Based on this video, we have written a complaint to the Panchayati Raj Ministry to investigate this matter and take action against the accused.
"The district administration has also initiated a separate inquiry into the matter. We will take legal action based on the investigation report," Anand said.
As per the video uploaded on social media, and not authenticated by IANS, Bhim Kumar is seen consuming liquor along with other people including a girl in a semi-nude position at his office-cum-residence, allocated to him by the state government.
Meanwhile, Bhim Kumar claimed that the video was doctored and someone is trying to malign his image. He said that he was never involved in organising a liquor party in his office or any other place.
In another incident, Excise Department officials arrested a CEO of a software company for procuring liquor.
"We have conducted a raid at flat number 505 of Mundeshwari apartment located at Rajiv Nagar locality and arrested a person named Abhishek Kumar in a drunken stage on Thursday night. We have also recovered a liquor bottle from the flat," Assistant Commissioner Kishore Kumar Shah said.
India on Tuesday recorded 1,68,063 new Covid cases, taking the total tally to 8,21,446. Although the fresh infections were 6.4 per cent less than Monday when the country logged 1,79,723, the weekly positivity rate has climbed to 8.85 per cent and the daily positivity rate has declined to 10.64 per cent. On the other hand, 4,461 Omicron cases were recorded from 28 states.
Delhi reported a 25 per cent surge in Covid-19 cases after recording 19,166 fresh cases. With this, the infection tally has climbed to 15,68,896. Meanwhile, the city has recorded 17 Covid deaths on the second consecutive day, pushing the death toll to 25,177.
On Monday, after a detailed hearing in the matter, a bench, headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, said the court will set up a committee headed by a retired top court judge to probe the PM's security breach and asked both the Centre and Punjab government to not move ahead with their respective inquiries into the matter.
Several Supreme Court advocates on Monday claimed to have received an international call with a recorded message asking the apex court not to help the Central government by taking up a case connected with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's security breach in Punjab last week.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress are projected to poll 40 per cent and 36 per cent votes in Punjab, respectively, as per the ABP-CVOTER Battle for the States survey. The 117-member Punjab Assembly will go to the polls on February 14, and the counting of votes will be taken up on March 10.
The highest quantity has been procured from Punjab (1,86,85,53 MT) followed by Chhattisgarh (67,65,986 MT) and Telangana (65,54,739 MT) while the highest number of farmers benefitted in are Chhattisgarh (16,90,459), Telangana (9,67,134) and Punjab (9,24,299).
