The building of former Aurangabad motor vehicle inspector Raghuvansh Kunwar, which was forfeited as part of the government’s anti-corruption drive. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, June 25: The fight against corruption is all set to gain momentum in Bihar with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) joining the state vigilance investigation bureau in stepping up the campaign against corrupt public servants.

The CBI has trapped and arrested at least half-a-dozen public servants in the state in the first five months this year. Majority of the public servants, who fell into the CBI net, were bank employees posted with different commercial banks in the state.

“We have spread our network and decided to nail as many as central government employees indulging in corrupt practices,” said a senior CBI official.

He said it was a good sign that people have turned in large numbers at the anti-corruption cell in Patna to lodge their complaints against corrupt officials. “But the success rate of trap cases is very low because it is a long-drawn process,” he explained.

“Of 10 complaints, the officials achieve success in only two-three cases,” the officer said, adding that the number of trap cases have registered increase in the past couple of years. Earlier, four-five trap cases were registered at the Patna branch of CBI in a year.

“In the past three years, on an average, 12 trap cases have been registered. The success rate is much higher than that in previous years,” the officer said, and added that their main thrust was on getting the arrested public servants prosecuted in trap cases. “We are trying to get cent per cent conviction in the trap cases. Though the conviction rate has declined all over the country, our rate of conviction in trap cases is encouraging,” he added.

On June 24, 2011, a CBI team from Patna arrested a deputy manager of Central Bank of India Shyama Kant Shukla from the Basantpur branch in Siwan district. CBI sleuths nabbed him while he was Rs 15,000 from one Chadrawati, a widow, against payment of her arrears of pension.

A fortnight ago, the deputy manager of a bank was arrested from Masauarhi in Patna Rural. On February 24, 2011, two officials of Central Bank of India, including senior manager of the Bikramganj branch in Rohtas district, were caught red-handed while taking bribe.

CBI sources said one Bishnu Shanker Singh had lodged a complaint with the office of the SP, CBI, alleging that the senior manager, Monazir Alam, and computer terminal operator, Asho Kumar Choubey, were demanding Rs 7,000 as bribe for sanctioning and releasing an educational loan to him. Subsequently, a case was lodged at the CBI police station in Patna.

A CBI team later laid a trap and caught both the officials while they were accepting bribe near the bank premises. They were produced in the CBI court in Patna and remanded in judicial custody in Beur Central Jail. On January 17 last, a deputy manager of the State Bank of India’s Patna main branch, Ajay Kumar Sinha, was arrested on the charge of accepting Rs 30,000 as bribe from one Umesh Kumar, a resident of Kankerbagh in Patna, for sanctioning him a loan of Rs 25 lakh for setting a rice polishing unit. Sinha had allegedly demanded Rs 1.20 lakh from the complainant.

The two anti-corruption wings of the Bihar government — the vigilance investigation bureau and the special vigilance unit — have booked over 450 government employees on graft charges since January, 2006.

Prominent among those arrested included former DGP Narayan Misra, then secretary of minor irrigation department S.S. Verma, former state drug controller Y.K. Jaiswal, former motor vehicle inspector of Aurangabad Raghuwansh Kuer and former Raj Bhasha director D. Choudhary.