Bribe in Brand New Notes

By Vijay Kumar

IT took less than a week to find the new notes in the bribery chain. NDTV has reported that two officers of the Kandla Port Trust have been arrested for taking a bribe of Rs 2.9 lakhs. What surprised even the Anti Corruption agency was that the entire money was in the new 2000 rupee notes!

Earlier it was reported that an assistant in a Zilla Parishad in Maharashtra was arrested while accepting a bribe which contained 17 new 2000 rupee notes. Three employees of Madhya Pradesh State Government were arrested on Tuesday - and they had five 2000 rupee notes. In this case, interestingly, the ACB asked the complainant to arrange for the new notes as taking old notes may not amount to corruption! But in Maharashtra three officers were arrested even for taking the demonetized currency as bribe.

It seems the cops in some cities do not accept the new 2000 rupee note for payment of fine, but a couple of hundred rupee notes as bribe is welcome.

I was in distant Shillong yesterday where a small time businessman told me hopefully that the Modi Government has brought down bribes to a reasonable 4 digit figures from the astronomical amounts and that itself is a good sign.