Chandigarh, June 21 (IANS) The Punjab vigilance arrested Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Sanjay Popli and his secretary on corruption charges.
As per the FIR, Popli allegedly sought one per cent commission from a contractor of a Rs 7 crore sewerage project in the Nawanshahr town during the previous Congress regime.
The contractor paid Rs 3.5 lakh through Sanjeev Vats, a Superintendent-level official posted as secretary to the officer, who was heading the Water Supply and Sewerage Board, on January 12.
The officials said Popli was seeking the remaining Rs 3.5 lakh from the contractor, who recorded his phone calls and complained on the anti-corruption helpline set up by the present Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government.
The officer was arrested from his house in Chandigarh on Monday evening.
In a severe jolt to the BJP in the Hindi heartland in the "semi finals" ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress on Tuesday knocked the saffron party out of power in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan
He admitted that Pakistan was attempting to revive militancy in Punjab and thus, everyone should be wary of all of its overtures, no matter how grand they appear to be
Navjot Singh Sidhu, who also skipped today's event as he had been advised by the doctor not to speak, was away to Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, for his medical follow-up.
Patel's resignation comes in the backdrop of the ongoing tiff between the government and the central bank over the liquidity and credit crunch in the economy that provoked an extraordinary meeting of the RBI board on November 19.
With RBI Governor Urjit Patel putting in his papers, his immediate predecessor Raghuram Rajan on Monday said "all Indians" should be concerned as strength of institutions is important for growth and development.
