Vadodara: Retired IPS officer D G Vanzara’s son Arjun Vanzara, who is a government officer, was caught red-handed by the Gujarat anti-corruption bureau while accepting bribe from a farmer, police said.

“We have arrested Arjun Vanzara, who is a mamlatdar (revenue officer), and his deputy Jaswant Hujra when they were accepting bribe of Rs 75,000,” Deputy SP of ACB P R Gehlot said.

D G Vanzara is an accused in Soharabuddin Sheikh, Tulsi Prajapati and Ishrat Jahan encounter cases.

According to ACB, it laid a trap on a complaint filed by Chintan Patel, a farmer from Varsad village.

“There was a wrong entry in the land records about a piece of land owned by Chintan Patel. He approached the mamlatdar for getting it corrected. Arjun Vanzara demanded Rs 1 lakh for correcting the mistake and after negotiation the deal was sealed for Rs 75,000,” Gehlot said.

“We laid a trap and arrested Vanzara and his deputy at his office at Narmada Bhavan here while they were taking the money,” he said.

ACB officers also recovered Rs 3.27 lakh from Vanzara’s car, he said, adding further probe is on.

More details from Vadodara:

Vanzara’s office was located on 6th floor of Narmada Bhavan. ACB carried out search operation at Vanzara’s rented residence in Pashabhai Park area till early morning. Rs 15.62 lakh assets were found at Arjun Vanzara’s place while Rs 15.16 lakh assets were found at Jaswantsinh’s place. Both Arjun and Jaswantsinh were produced before court. The court sent them to judicial custody(jail).

Farmer Chintan Kantibhai Patel from Varsada was sent notice on 22nd May, 2015 by Vadodara rural Mamlatdar(Arjun D Vanzara) as per 135D regarding his land in Intola. Patel was told through notice that if he had any issue against entry of the name of Bhavin Yashwantsinh Chauhan in his property document, he could make his representation within 30 days. Patel was issued notice because Bhavin had managed to insert his name through bogus entry in Patel’s land ownership documents. Chintan Patel had in response contacted e-Dhara center Mamlatdar Tushar Shah. Patel asked Shah that on which basis Bhavin’s name could enter in land document? However Shah’s reply was not satisfactory. An application against this then reached Vanzara’s office. Vanzara and Deputy Mamlatdar Jaswantsinh Hazuri demanded Rs 75,000 bribe. Patel complained before Anti Corruption Bureau(ACB) with digital phone call talk record. Accordingly the ACB team arranged trap in Narmada Bhavan office of Vanzara.

Chintan was called by Vanzara to come with bribe money. Chintan reached Vanzara’s office at around 4.50 pm. Vanzara sent Hazuri outside. Jaswantsinh received Rs 75,000 bribe money and went to Vanzara to tell that money had arrived. Vanzara immediately signed the documents in favor of Patel.On the other side Chintan came out of office and gave signal to ACB team. The team caught Jaswantsinh and Vanzara red handed with bribe money. Police Inspector Kalpesh Solanki conducted search operation till 2 am later at Vanzara’s Pashabhai Park residence. ACB found Rs 12 lakh Hyundai Creta car, furniture and in total Rs 15.62 lakh assets. Jaswantsinh Hazuri’s resident is located in Vallabh Park society at Vaghodia road. ACB found Volkswagen car, bullet, Alto car, Activa two-wheeler, furniture – in total Rs 15.16 lakh assets and one locker.

It should be mentioned here that Arjun Vanzara who joined as Mamlatdar(class-2) about 8 years back, was to get promotion as Deputy Collector within current month, however with this case against him, he is for now not likely to be promoted. DG Vanzara’s other son Pruthvi Vanzara had rushed to Vadodara to help his brother.

Arjun Vanzara has not been able to give satisfactory reply on money found in his possession.After recovering Rs 75,000 bribe money from him, ACB conducted search in his office and car. Rs 2.60 lakh was found from his laptop bag while Rs 52,500 were found from other small bag. Rs 15,000 cover was found from his office drawer. Rs 26,141 amount was found from Jaswantsinh.

As soon as Vanzara and Deputy Mamlatdar were trapped in ACB net at around 4.50 pm, corrupt officers in other offices of Narmada Bhavan left their offices to evade any further ACB probe. Some even didn’t wait for lift and escaped through ladders. Narmada Bhavan has government offices and entire complex is popularly known as Corruption Bhavan.

With inputs from agency