Samalkot civic chief caught taking bribe

HYDERABAD: The municipal commissioner of Samalkot municipality in East Godavari was caught redhanded by AntiCorruption Bureau official son Thursday when she took Rs 60,000 as bribe from a contractor.B Jyothi Lakshmi was caught in her chambers when she took the bribe from a municipal contractor to process a bill for Rs 11.50 lakh in respect of five civil contracts undertaken by the latter. The bribe money was recovered at her instance from the attendance register in her chambers.According to an ACB press release, Jyothi Lakshmi had been trapped twice earlier in 2002 and 2006.She was trapped in 2002 while working as commissioner of Salur municipality in Vizianagaram district when she took a bribe of Rs 5,000 from a contractor for clearing a pending bill. The case ended in her acquittal.In 2006, while working as municipal commissioner of Ramachandrapuram in East Godavri district she was trapped again when she demanded and accepted a bribe of  Rs 10,400 from a contractor for passing a pending bill. The case is under trial."Jyothi Lakshmi has been trapped three times by ACB in her career so far,'' the release said, adding that she would be arrested and produced before a court in Vijayawada.In another trap, the junior assistant in Provident Fund section of zilla praja parishad office in Kadapa, J Ravindrababu, was caught taking Rs 2,000 as bribe from a retired MPP headmaster, S Gangi Reddy, to process the PF final amount bill.