Anti-Corruption Team Arrests Lekhpal’s Private Clerk With ₹1 Lakh Bribe Near UP College

A Varanasi division anti-corruption team on Tuesday afternoon arrested a private clerk accused of collecting a ₹1 lakh bribe for a land mutation, while the halka lekhpal named in the complaint remains absconding.

The trap was sprung around 1.41 pm near the UP College gate, close to an Indian Bank branch. The arrested man has been identified as Ashok, described by investigators as the private munshi of halka lekhpal Kundan Singh, who handles the Seergovardhanpur circle under tehsil Sadar. Police say Ashok was caught after he allegedly accepted the cash from the complainant.

Kamal Kant Vikram, a resident of Jaipar under Shivpur police station, had given a written complaint at the anti-corruption police station. According to that complaint, his father Omprakash Singh had applied for kharij-dakhil — mutation — linked to the sale of ancestral land. The allegation is that lekhpal Kundan Singh demanded ₹1 lakh to process the file.

On Tuesday, investigators say, a phone conversation took place between the complainant and the lekhpal. Kundan Singh allegedly sent his munshi to the meeting point. Ashok called the complainant near the college gate and, police claim, took the ₹1 lakh. In questioning after the arrest, the munshi allegedly said he had come on the lekhpal’s instructions. A mobile phone recovered from him is said to hold an audio recording of talk about the bribe arrangement between the lekhpal and the clerk.

Anti-corruption team in-charge Neeraj Singh said Kundan Singh absconded after the arrest and that teams were raiding tehsil Sadar and other likely hideouts. Legal formalities for both accused are being processed at Cantt police station.

All of the bribery and demand claims remain allegations under investigation. The complainant’s version, the seized phone material and the munshi’s post-arrest statement will be tested as the case moves. For now, the confirmed public facts are the Tuesday afternoon arrest of Ashok with the alleged bribe amount, the naming of lekhpal Kundan Singh as absconding, and Cantt police paperwork on the anti-corruption case.

Mutation files are ordinary revenue work — transferring a sold plot in the land record — and they are also a known pressure point for bribe complaints across tehsils. Tuesday’s case sits in that pattern: a written anti-corruption complaint, a monitored meeting, cash changing hands, and an arrest of the person who allegedly came to collect. The twist investigators emphasise is the private munshi acting as the pickup man while the lekhpal stayed off-site.

Seergovardhanpur’s halka seat under Sadar tehsil will now see follow-up raids, Neeraj Singh said, until Kundan Singh is found. Cantt police station is the jurisdictional home for the formal case papers even though the trap site was near UP College. That split — anti-corruption team for the operation, local station for the FIR process — is routine in such traps.

Readers should keep the presumption of innocence in view. Ashok is under arrest on the bribery allegation; Kundan Singh is wanted on the same complaint and has not yet told his side on the record in this report. Call recordings and cash recovery will be exhibits, not finished verdicts. The Tuesday 1.41 pm arrest near the college gate is the hard news; everything else is the allegation trail the courts will test.