Dindigul, Dec 02 – The sleuths of Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) on Friday arrested an Enforcement Officer (EO), attached to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Madurai for allegedly demanding and accepting bribe from a government doctor in Dindigul for not reopening disproportionate wealth case against him.
Police sources said the EO, Ankit Tiwari was caught red-handed with Rs 20 lakh bribe amount.
He was arrested while travelling in his Maharashtra-registered car with the cash near Chinnalapatti toll plaza on the Dindigul-Madurai highway here after a chase by the DVAC officials.
He was possessing an ED Identity Card, in which his designation was mentioned as EO at the time of arrest, the sources said.
Tiwari had served in Gujarat and Maharashtra before being transferred to Tamil Nadu.
Preliminary investigations revealed that he had extorted money from several individuals on the ED radar to close cases against them.
Tiwari allegedly threatened the Dindigul government doctor Suresh Babu that the ED has decided to reopen the disproportionate wealth case against him and demanded Rs 3 crore to drop action against him.
It may be recalled that he DVAC had registered disproportionate wealth case against Suresh Babu in 2018 and after a detailed probe and other proceedings, he was released from it.
As the ED official threatened him of reopening the case, the doctor after some negotiations had agreed to give Rs 51 lakh as bribe. As per the deal, the doctor gave Rs 20 lakh in first phase.
When the EO pressurised the doctor to settle the remaining bribe, he lodged a complaint with the DVAC.
The DVAC laid a trap and as per plan, the doctor handed over Rs 20 lakh as second installment resulting in the arrest.
Senior DVAC officials were interrogating him.
