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 the second such conviction leading to capital punishment in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, a trial court awarded the death penalty to a man after holding him guilty of murder while another person was given life imprisonment in the case.
The government on Monday said it would install a high-powered telescope on the Indo-Pakistan border to enable devotees across India to get a better view of Kartarpur Sahib.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday defended its Punjab leader HS Phoolka who waded into a controversy with his remarks on a grenade attack in Amritsar, saying he has already regretted it and should not be defamed.
India is today the world's second most-polluted country, trailing only Nepal, it said and pointed out that loss of life expectancy was the highest in Asia, exceeding six years in many parts of India and China.
