‘Whistleblower’ held for extorting govt officials

Times of India: Aurangabad: Monday, 10 November 2014.

A man has been arrested and sent to police custody for allegedly extorting Rs 1 lakh from the taluka agricultural officer in Parbhani, around 200 km from here, by identifying himself as the national president of a self-floated anti-corruption NGO. A local court on Saturday remanded the accused, Sanjay Udawant, in three days of police custody.

Parbhani police Udawant was "infamous" in various government departments across the district for allegedly using Right to Information (RTI) as a tool for seeking information and later flashing a letterhead, claiming to be the "south India president" of an international human rights organization, and that of another NGO for allegedly extorting officials, police said.

On June 10, he had lodged a complaint with the Parbhani agriculture superintendent that an alleged corruption running into crores was detected in projects headed by the circle agriculture officer. The projects were carried out for the 2013-14 financial year in accordance with the administrative orders issued by the Parbhani district collector on March 31, 2014.

Inspector (Parbhani crime branch) Vivek Muglikar said, "After the complaint was lodged, an inquiry was initiated by the agriculture department. The complainant, who is now an accused, did not cooperate with the investigation. Instead, he demanded a sum of Rs 5 lakh from the officials for settling the issue."

After the inquiry was conducted and the report was submitted, Udawant said he did not agree with the findings and reached out to the agriculture commissioner's office in Pune and even sat on a hunger strike in that city to put pressure on officials in Parbhani.

Taking cognizance of the hunger strike, the agriculture commissioner ordered the vigilance squad to conduct a high-level inquiry. "Even after the high-level inquiry was ordered, the accused started visiting the agriculture officer's office and allegedly kept on pestering him for meeting his demands. He also started circulating defaming contents thorough a cellphone-based application with malicious intention against the agricultural officials and kept on demanding money," Muglikar said.

Finally, the "extortion amount" was settled at Rs 4.25 lakh and the accused was arrested when he reached to agricultural officer Harishchandra Giri for accepting Rs 1 lakh as the first installment.