CBI court convicts passport office employee for taking bribe

A CBI court has sentenced an employee of the regional passport office (RPO) here to four years of rigourous imprisonment each on two counts for taking bribe to clear a passport file of a complainant and delivering it to his home.

Anjali Das Thakuria, personal assistant to the regional passport officer, was convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and her imprisonment terms would run concurrently, an official release by the CBI said Wednesday.

She was also asked to pay a fine of Rs 5,000 in each of the two cases in default of which she would undergo imprisonment for an additional six months, it added.

A case against Thakuria was registered on the basis of a written complaint lodged by a man in September 2014 for demanding a bribe of Rs 2,000 for clearing his passport file and delivering it to his home within seven days.

She was caught red-handed and a charge sheet against her was submitted in the court in June 2015.