Government officials and their middlemen in Gujarat have been offering people the option to pay bribes in "instalments". The Gujarat Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) reported on Thursday that at least ten such cases have surfaced this year.
ACB Director Shamsher Singh noted that this practice is not new and has been ongoing for some time. "There is nothing new in it. Usually, the victim agrees to give the first instalment before the work is done and then gives the second after the work is done. But sometimes, they change their mind and approach the ACB instead of giving the second or any subsequent instalment," he was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
In March, two persons claiming to work for Gujarat GST officials approached a mobile shop owner in Ahmedabad and demanded a bribe of Rs 21 lakh to settle a tax-related issue following a raid. According to a PTI report, the shop owner agreed to pay Rs 2 lakh as the first instalment and the remaining in two further instalments. However, he later contacted the ACB, which set up a trap on March 30 and arrested one of the accused while accepting the first instalment of Rs 2 lakh.
In April, a deputy sarpanch and a taluka panchayat member in Surat demanded Rs 80,000 from a farmer to get his work done. They were caught on April 4 while accepting the first instalment of Rs 35,000, the report said.
Around the same time, the ACB arrested a police sub-inspector (PSI) of the state CID Crime in Gandhinagar for accepting a bribe of Rs 40,000 from a person booked by the agency. The PSI had accepted Rs 10,000 in advance and agreed to take Rs 40,000 afterward.
Additionally, a royalty inspector of the state Mines and Minerals department in Narmada district agreed to take a Rs 1 lakh bribe in two instalments after a truck driver expressed his inability to pay the full amount at once. The inspector's middleman was caught by the ACB while accepting the first instalment of Rs 60,000 on April 26.