Ahmedabad: A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Ahmedabad on Monday sent Gujarat cadre IAS officer K Rajesh to judicial custody in a case of bribery.
Special CBI judge V V Parmar sent Rajesh to judicial custody after his four-day remand ended on Monday. The court denied the probe agency a further 10-day remand.
The 2011-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, who was posted as the joint secretary of the general administration department in Gandhinagar before his arrest, has been accused of taking bribes for land deals and sanctioning weapon licences to ineligible people during his posting as the collector of Surendranagar district.
Rajesh was arrested on July 13 and was produced before the court after his custody with the CBI ended.
The probe agency had in May arrested Mohammad Rafiq Memon, a Surat resident who had allegedly worked as a middleman for the accused officer to collect the bribe money.
Apart from granting arms licences to unqualified people, Rajesh has been accused of taking bribes for the allotment of government land and regularisation of encroached state land in the name of ineligible beneficiaries.
“A preliminary enquiry was earlier registered on a request of the Gujarat government in the matter. The instant case is the outcome of the PE,” the CBI had said after the registration of the case.
After lodging the case, the agency had conducted searches at the premises of the accused in Gandhinagar and Surat in Gujarat and at Rajesh's native place in Andhra Pradesh, which led to the recovery of incriminating documentary and digital evidence, it had said.
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