West Bengal: IFS, ACB officers arrested on bribery charges

Alankar Jha held the post of additional principal chief conservator of forests while Subhasis Chakraborty was deputy superintendent of police (DSP) in the state ACB. Chakraborty was the investigating officer in a case of misappropriation of funds, in which Jha was allegedly involved when he was director of the Darjeeling Zoo a few years ago. The two were arrested from a hotel where Jha was allegedly about to bribe the ACB officer in exchange for information regarding the case, according to the FIR.

The ACB had been investigating corruption charges against Jha, who had been suspended 18 months ago. Unsatisfied with the progress of the probe under Chakraborty, they began monitoring him. They then discovered that Jha had bribed the accused DSP twice to hush up the case, said sources. On Saturday evening, they tracked the two down to Ambroshia Hotel in Dunlop based on a tip-off.

The ACB placed two officers and two independent witnesses at the spot. According to sources, Chakraborty and Jha walked in and sat on separate tables. After some time, Chakraborty walked over to Jha and started a conversation. When Chakraborty handed Jha a document, the officers moved in. They recovered around Rs 2,50,000 from the spot.

Jha, a 1982-batch IFS officer, was first arrested for irregularities in revenue worth around Rs 40 lakh in 1998-99 when he was divisional forest officer (DFO), Cooch Behar (Wildlife). He spent two months in jail. He was then transferred and posted as director of Darjeeling Zoo, where he was accused of preparing false rosters, false vouchers and misappropriating funds. In 2014, he was removed from the post of director and given the post of OSD (Forest) in Salt Lake. After ACB took charge of the corruption case, he was suspended.

Jha and Chakraborty were arrested under the Prevention of Corruption Act and Indian Penal Code. “They have been sent to police custody till September 29,” said an ACB official.

With PTI Inputs