SOG Officer Arrested for Alleged Rs 2 Crore Bribe in Udaipur Land Scam Probe

A senior officer of Rajasthan's Special Operations Group (SOG) has been arrested by the state's Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) for allegedly demanding a Rs 2 crore bribe in connection with the multi-crore Udaipur Municipal Corporation land scam case.

Mukesh Kumar Soni, an Additional Superintendent of Police with the SOG, was taken into custody on Sunday, a day after his alleged middleman, Sajjan Singh Jain alias Tatla, was caught red-handed while accepting the bribe on his behalf.

According to ACB Director General Govind Gupta, the bureau's Intelligence Unit in Udaipur received a complaint that Soni was demanding the money through Singh in exchange for relief to the complainant, who had earlier been arrested in the case. The officer allegedly sought the bribe to close the case, avoid naming the complainant as an accused in other matters, and return documents seized from the homes of the accused during arrests.

Officials said that when the complainant insisted on verifying that the money was meant for Soni, Singh arranged a meeting between the two in a car a few days ago. During the conversation, Soni reportedly did not speak at all, apparently fearing he was being recorded, and is said to have merely shown a text reading "Rs 2 crore" to the complainant.

After verification, the ACB laid a trap and arrested Singh while he was allegedly accepting the bribe at the complainant's factory. Soni was subsequently detained at his residence in Balotra district the same day and formally arrested on Sunday. Of the recovered amount, Rs 4 lakh is in Indian currency, the ACB said. A case has been registered under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provision for criminal conspiracy.

The SOG, often described as the "pride of Rajasthan police", is a specialised unit tasked with tackling organised crime, terrorism, narco-trafficking and other serious offences. Its functions include busting drug syndicates, investigating digital fraud and forgery, detecting exam paper leaks and fake certificate rackets, and acting against illegal arms supply and gangster networks.

The present case relates to alleged irregularities in the transfer of some of the 30 land schemes and 16 slums to the Udaipur Municipal Corporation in 2004 by the Udaipur Improvement Trust, now the Udaipur Development Authority. Urban Development Minister Jhabar Singh Kharra told the state Assembly in August 2024 that plots allotted by the trust were automatically cancelled when allottees failed to deposit the amount, but the files were not transferred to the municipal corporation. The corporation also had no information about vacant plots, corner plots and files related to cancelled allotments. Many of these parcels were allegedly taken over by land mafia through forged documents in connivance with public officials.

The investigation itself has faced repeated setbacks. An inquiry committee formed by the Municipal Corporation in December 2021 submitted its report in March 2022, but it was signed only by the officers, with public representatives refusing to sign. The report levelled charges against some officials, after which cases were lodged at two Udaipur police stations and handed over to the SOG Unit, Jodhpur, in May 2022. The case was transferred to the SOG Udaipur unit in May 2023 and then to the SOG Ajmer unit in April 2024, which was investigating it at the time of the arrest.

Kharra had said in the Assembly that upon completion of the investigation, legal proceedings would be initiated against the then Municipal Corporation Commissioner and other culpable personnel, and action would be taken to reclaim suspect plots. Former Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria, now Punjab Governor, had earlier described the matter as a Rs 500-crore scam.