Bhubaneswar: Congress Rajya Sabha member Ranjib Biswal has publicly admitted to have paid Rs 40,000 bribe to obtain a state government permission for his project at Phulnakhara on Bhubaneswar-Cuttack highway.
The MP claimed that he had to pay the bribe to get the requisite clearance from the block development officer for a “small project” at Phulnakahara, which had been hanging fire for six months.
Biswal cited this “personal experience” about corruption in the state while speaking at the annual function of a local TV channel.
He further claimed that paying 13 per cent of the project cost to get clearance had become a norm at the block level.
BJD MLA Amar Satpathy, who was present on the occasion, regretted the MP’s bribe-giving experience and said Biswal could have brought it to his notice.
While emphatically mocking at Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s ‘5Ts’ plan though this admission, Biswal seems to have conveniently forgotten that a “bribe-giver” is as much an offender in the eyes of law as a recipient of an illegal gratification.
As per the PC (Amendment) Act, 2018, a person giving bribe is liable to 7 years of imprisonment.
In a ruling in the early 1980s, the Orissa High Court had termed Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik as a bribe-giver because of which he had lost his minister’s post in the then JB Patnaik government.
