The Bhajan Lal Sharma government on Monday suspended Jaipur Heritage Mayor Munesh Gurjar stating that corruption charges against her are “prima facie true”. As per an order by the Local Self Government department, in compliance with the Rajasthan High Court order, the department had appointed an officer to investigate the corruption charges against her. The officer also gave Gurjar an opportunity to be heard, and sent the report to the department. “On the basis of the report received by the department, the allegations against Mrs Munesh Gurjar, Mayor, Jaipur Municipal Corporation, signing leases at the behest of her husband Mr Sushil Gurjar, discussing the leases with her husband, keeping them pending, and signing leases after receiving bribe amount in lieu of leases, appears to be prima facie proven,” the department said. The department said that after finding her prima facie guilty in the report, the department issued a notice seeking explanation from Munesh under the Rajasthan Municipality Act, 2009, and said that her reply was “not satisfactory.” Earlier this month, the government had also given prosecution sanction to the ACB to proceed against Munesh. She had last been suspended twice during Congress rule in August and September 2023. In August last year, Munesh's husband Sushil Gurjar was caught by the Special Investigation Wing (SIW) of the ACB. Along with middlemen Narayan Singh and one Anil Dubey, the trio was caught taking a bribe of Rs 2 lakh. The complainant had said that he had applied for a land deed but Sushil Gurjar and two others were demanding Rs 2 lakh in lieu of issuing the land deed. However, the SIW caught the three on August 4, 2023. Over Rs 40 lakh in cash was seized from Sushil’s residence, apart from the complainant’s file, while Rs 8 lakh was seized from Narayan Singh’s residence. Meanwhile, Munesh had also recently approached the High Court against the FIR against her, stating that the FIR has been lodged against her out of malice and that no recovery was made from her. The matter is still pending in the court.
