‘RTI activist’ extortion: 3 more cases registered

Following Sharma’s arrest, at least 75 junior engineers, assistant engineers and senior officials in the MCD have come under the scanner of the ACB which has seized 27 confirmed recordings of conversations between Sharma and senior MCD officials. The transcripts of at least nine conversations have been submitted before a local court.

Government sources said that one of the junior engineers has been accused by all three complainants of extorting a total of Rs 13.5 lakh from them. The other engineer has been accused of extorting Rs 1 lakh from one complainant.

Sources said the FIRs were filed by three builders — Vinod Kumar Aggarwal, Mohd Saleem and Satbir Singh. Satbir in his statement said one of the JEs took Rs 11 lakh from him and his business partner. Later, when he was transferred and replaced by another JE, he too extorted Rs 1 lakh from Satbir.

Aggarwal and Saleem have accused the same JE of extorting Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh, respectively. Aggarwal mentioned in his statement that the JE had initially sought Rs 1.25 lakh from him through Sharma. “The break-up he gave for the Rs 1 lakh was — (JE’s) fee and
Rs 25,000 for Anil Dutt Sharma as ‘touting charge’,” Aggarwal’s statement read.

The FIRs state that Sharma along with the MCD officials would identify properties they wished to target and then file an RTI plea. Then they would approach the builders and ask them to pay up threatening them with the RTI reply. If the builder refused, the JEs would call up Sharma who would then give them instructions on whether to seal the property or demolish it.

The three complainants have submitted as evidence, the recordings of their phone conversations with the two JEs. These will be sent for an FSL examination, ACB officers said.