Sleuths of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, arrested an executive engineer of the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) at Somanur in Coimbatore district for demanding and accepting bribe for shifting an electricity pole on a private land.
K.R. Sabarirajan, 57, who had been working as executive engineer (Operations and Maintenance) at the Tangedco office at Somanur, was arrested for demanding and accepting ₹20,000 as bribe, based on a complaint lodged by K. Senthilprabhu, 36, a software engineer from Tiruppur.
Mr. Senthilprabhu’s father owns nearly 99 cents of land at Mudalipalayam near Neelambur, on which a pole of low tension power line is situated in the centre. The complainant submitted an online application for shifting the pole to an edge of the land.
Later, officials at the Tangedco office at Neelambur instructed him to meet Sabarirajan, stating that the shifting process costs over ₹50,000 and its estimation had to be approved by the executive engineer. The land was inspected on June 9.
According to DVAC, the executive engineer contacted the complainant’s father on June 12 and demanded ₹20,000 for approving the estimation. When the complainant and his father met the Tangedco officer at his office on Monday, they were instructed to hand over the bribe on Tuesday.
Unwilling to bribe the officer, the complainant approached the DVAC Coimbatore unit. A team headed by DVAC Additional Deputy Superintendent of Police M.P. Dhivya organised a trap and handed currencies laced with phenolphthalein to the complainant.
The complainant visited the Tangedco officer at his office around 3 p.m. on Tuesday and enquired about the approval of the estimation for shifting the pole. The officer, according to DVAC, assured that the estimation will be processed within this week. He demanded and accepted the currencies from the complainant, DVAC officials said.
After receiving a signal from the complainant, the DVAC team that was waiting outside rushed into the office.
A phenolphthalein test proved that the executive engineer received the bribe from the complainant and the cash was recovered. The officer was arrested.
Published – June 17, 2025 07:32 pm IST