NZ visa officer in New Delhi sacked after corruption claim

An Immigration New Zealand visa officer in New Delhi has been sacked after an internal investigation into corruption claims.

Head of Immigration Nigel Bickle said the staff member was dismissed in May for "misusing departmental information for personal purposes".

The agency is also facing ongoing Indian police investigations after Tauranga lawyer Vinay Deobhakta lodged a complaint of corruption with police in India after Immigration New Zealand closed its investigation into an earlier complaint.

But Mr Bickle said the sacking was the result of internal investigations and did not involve police.

Mr Deobhakta, who had been trying to get a group of 47 Indians to New Zealand last year, alleged that an immigration officer in New Delhi had demanded a $282,000 bribe to process their visas.

An Auckland woman said she could get work permits for the group if he paid the officer $6000 for each - despite none of them meeting criteria for work permits - because she had a relative who was a staff member in Immigration's New Delhi office, he said.

"There are a number of checks and balances in place, including CCTV, to both protect staff from baseless allegations and to ensure the integrity of all decisions made in the department's New Delhi office," Mr Bickle said.

But a former immigration staff member, who used to work in New Delhi, said it was "common practice" for immigration staff in India to sell information.

"I have no doubt he [the sacked worker] had passed on information obtained from the department for personal gain, but I know that 90 per cent of other officers at the New Delhi office also do it," he said.

The source said that cameras would not have caught the incidents in question as the sale of information always takes place away from the office.

The Herald understands that investigations were also targeting several other New Delhi officers, but Immigration refused to confirm this, saying doing so could prejudice any such investigation.