Rajasthan Cop Allegedly Demanded Rs 2 Crore Bribe To Close Case, Arrested

Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Sunday arrested an official of the Special Operations Group (SOG), the state's premier police agency, a day after it trapped an alleged middleman while accepting a bribe of Rs 2 crore purportedly on behalf of the now-arrested officer.

The accused middleman, Sajjan Kumar, was allegedly accepting the money on behalf of SOG Additional Superintendent of Police Mukesh Kumar Soni, the official said.

ASP Mukesh Kumar Soni, posted in Udaipur, was detained from his residence in Balotra district after his role was found suspicious.

The entire matter concerns a demand for a bribe in exchange for filing a closure report in the Udaipur Municipal Corporation's 272-plot scam case and releasing seized goods. The court has remanded both the middleman and Mukesh Soni to three days of custody.

The ACB said a case will be registered under Sections 7 and 7A of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Soni's arrest has put the spotlight back on the controversies involving the officer.

One the cases involved the alleged suicide of a 35-year-old lecturer Manohar Lal Bhadu who jumped in front of a train near Arjun Nagar Phatak in Jaipur on February 4.

He had been appointed as a History lecturer in 2021 but was subsequently suspended pending an investigation into irregularities in the recruitment examination.

In his alleged suicide note, Manohar wrote, "My name does not appear in the FIR registered at the Ajmer SOG branch against Ramesh Kumar (a Grade-2 Hindi teacher). Even after Ramesh was arrested, my name was nowhere to be found in the charge sheet filed against him. The then-investigating officer, Mukesh Soni, questioned 6-7 individuals who had been apprehended during the proceedings-such as Dr Suresh, Shailesh Khichad, and others-asking who Manohar was, how much money he possessed, and what he was currently doing."

Manohar alleged that Mukesh Soni tried to extort money from him.

The professor alleged that after his transfer, Mukesh Soni made a WhatsApp call to the then-investigating officer, Shyamsundar Bishnoi, instructing him: "Do not implicate anyone other than Manohar Bhadu in this case; you can drag him into four separate cases and use intimidation to make him do whatever you want. I would have arrested him myself, but I was transferred before I could do so."

He further alleged that Mukesh pressured the investigating officer, Shyamsundar, to forcibly implicate him in two additional cases. Manohar wrote that his ability to function had been stripped away, stating, "I am not dead [physically], yet the entity known as the police has 'intentionally' murdered me."

Based on these allegations, the SOG ordered an investigation at the time, but no action was taken even after several months had passed.

Mukesh Soni is also alleged to have weakened cases against drug smugglers in Ajmer.

He was posted as the Circle Officer (CO) for Ajmer South. Allegations were raised that he failed to conduct the investigation properly in order to benefit the accused. Observing the failure of police officers to conduct investigations correctly, the Rajasthan High Court ordered an inquiry against three police officers, including Mukesh Soni, in 2022.