GLDC bribery case: High court cancels ACB remand of MD Detroja

Gandhinagar:

Gujarat High Court today cancelled the remand of main accused of sensational Gujarat Land Development Corporation (GLDC) bribe case and former MD of the corporation K S Detroja, to the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) and ordered him to be sent to judicial custody (jail).

Detroja was nabbed from a place between Vadodara and Ahmedabad by the crime branch of Ahmedabad police on May 1 and handed over to the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) which had produced at the Ahmedabad residence of the magistrate of Gandhinagar sessions court on May 2. He had allowed 14 days remand of Detroja.

The high court today hearing a plea of Detroja cancelled the remand immediately and asked him to be sent to judicial custody.

Notably the ACB earlier had demanded 14 days remand from the magistrate who had granted the same for further interrogation and investigation. Normally a court does not allow remand of as many days as sought by an investigating agency.

ACB had raided the GLDC office here in the evening of April 12 and recovered cash worth over Rs 56 lakhs from there.

It was revealed that 5 officials of the corporation including Detroja were involved in taking bribe.

Two of them Joint Director K C Parmar and Field Supervisor S M Vaghela were already nabbed. Notably, MD Detroja, Assistant Director M K Desai and Company Secretary S V Shah who were also accused in the case lodged in the ACB police station here on April 14, had gone underground.

It has been revealed prima facie that Parmar, who was in service post retirement and from whose office the maximum amount of Rs 40,52,500 was recovered, used to collect bribe on behalf of MD Detroja for past 2 years. The bribe was collected for grant for various government schemes. Rs 1.28 lakh in cash was recovered from Detroja’s office 5 lakh from Vaghela’s office and 70 thousand from Shah’s office. Rs 9 lakh cash and Jewelry and other items were found his residential locker.

Shah and Desai are still at large.

DeshGujarat