Graft case: IAS officers Dahiya, Arya get bail

Vijay Singh Dahiya, who was posted as the commissioner and secretary of the Haryana skill development department in Panchkula, was booked on April 20 after the arrest of a woman, who allegedly acted as a facilitator to get bills cleared in lieu of money collected on his behalf

The Panchkula court on Tuesday awarded bails to two senior IAS officers—Vijay Singh Dahiya and Jaibir Singh Arya—who were arrested by Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in bribery cases.

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Dahiya, who was posted as the commissioner and secretary of the Haryana skill development department in Panchkula, was booked on April 20 after the arrest of a woman, who allegedly acted as a facilitator to get bills cleared in lieu of money collected on his behalf.

A case under Sections 7 and 7A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and Sections 384 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code was registered on April 20 on the complaint of Rinku Manchanda of Fatehabad, who had claimed that he was running an educational institution and imparting computer training besides running classes for AC technicians and beauty parlour.

For the work, the Haryana skill development department had to pay bills amounting to ₹50 lakh to him and ₹5 lakh was being demanded to clear these bills. At least ₹2 lakh was recovered from the woman by the ACB, when she was caught.

In the court, Dahiya’s counsel SPS Parmar argued: “The name of the applicant has been illegally included as accused despite the fact that there was neither any evidence of demand of bribe nor any acceptance of bribe. No preliminary inquiry was made to ascertain the facts before registration of FIR as decided by Supreme Court in Lalita Kumari case.”

He adds that the main accused is out on bail, and only Dahiya is under judicial custody. The court of additional district and sessions judge Praveen Kumar allowed the bail plea.

Arya’s counsel calls complaint frivolous; court grants bail

In October, ACB arrested IAS Jaibir Singh Arya, the managing director of Haryana State Warehousing Corporation, under charges of seeking a bribe for sanctioning a transfer.

As per the FIR, the complainant, Rajesh Kumar of Kurukshetra, told the ACB that HSWC Panipat district manager Sandeep Ganghas had approached him with an offer to pay the then HSWC MD, Jaibir Arya, ₹3 lakh as illegal gratification to get his wife, Rinku Hooda, posted as Kurukshetra district manager.

Her posting orders for Kurukshetra were issued by Arya on October 5 and she joined on October 6, the FIR said. Thereafter, Ghanghas told the complainant to pay the bribe money being sought by the IAS officer through Rajesh Bansal who allegedly acted as Arya’s middleman, the FIR added. It further said Ghanghas also told him that Bansal had asked that the bribe money be delivered to one Manish Sharma, who has a shop in the Industrial Area in Panchkula.

The ACB sleuths arrested the middleman while accepting ₹3 lakh bribe and Arya was arrested for demanding the bribe. His counsel, SPS Parmar, argued that a frivolous complaint had been marked.

“The complainant party was not happy with the action of applicant/ accused declining the leave application for further 1 and ½ years and only for this reason, a false complaint was moved with the ulterior motive of falsely implicating him in the present case,” Parmar said.

The court of additional sessions judge allowed the bail plea moved by Arya.