A local court on Monday extended the police remand of Rashim Garg till February 23 even as the vigilance bureau (VB) has yet to make any move to question the Bathinda Rural legislator Amit Rattan Kotfatta in an alleged bribery case.
Garg, a close aide of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Kotfatta, was produced in the court this afternoon.
Briefing the media, VB’s deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Kulwant Singh declined to comment on the alleged role of the MLA in the bribery case.
“We cannot disclose anything yet as a probe is underway,” he said when asked if the role of more persons has emerged in the matter.
He said on the basis of Garg’s custodial interrogation, a sum of ₹1.31 lakh of the alleged money has been recovered and we need to recover another ₹1.69 lakh taken as a bribe.
DSP denied that the bureau has communicated to the Vidhan Sabha speaker as the sitting MLA is facing a direct charge of corruption.
“Our team has secured the mobile phone of Garg and the call details are being scrutinised. We are also studying the audio conversations, submitted by the complainant Pritpal Kumar as evidence against the MLA and Garg. VB has no further comment to offer as yet,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“Our team has secured the mobile phone of Garg and the call details are being scrutinised. We are also studying the audio conversations, submitted by the complainant Pritpal Kumar as evidence against the MLA and Garg. VB has no further comment to offer as yet,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Garg was arrested red-handed by the VB from Bathinda circuit house on February 16 with ₹4 lakh of bribe money taken from Pritpal, husband of the sarpanch of Ghudda.
A first information report (FIR) registered named Garg was named as the accused. In his complaint, Pritpal had charged the MLA with demanding a bribe for expediting pending payments of development works at the village.
Kotfatta has rubbished the charges levelled against him.