Two government officers, whose pay packs are not more than Rs 80,000 a month, have been found to allegedly possess disproportionate assets worth crores.
Economic offences unit (EOU) officials today unearthed disproportionate assets during search operations at a district agriculture officer and a motor vehicle inspector’s offices and residential premises. Both have served their departments for more than 15 years.
The EOU officials conducted raids at six places, including the office and residence of East Champaran district agriculture officer Dharmaveer Pandey (50) in Motihari, Bettiah and Patna and detected movable and immovable property worth Rs 3.52 crore.
The EOU officials seized Rs 24 lakh from Pandey’s Shri Krishna Vihar Colony (Beur) apartment in Patna. The EOU officials also recovered Rs 7 lakh in cash from the almirah of the agriculture officer’s nazir (clerk-cum-accountant) Agnu Choudhary.
Additional director-general of police (law and order) S.K. Bhardwaj said the search at Pandey’s office and residential premises yielded immovable property worth Rs 1.41 crore and movable property worth Rs 2.11 crore. Documents of 23 bank accounts have also been seized.
“We are waiting for the details of the amount deposited in Pandey’s banks and also that of his relatives,” he said, adding that a branded sports motorcycle valued at Rs 1.86 lakh was among the seven vehicles seized during the operation.
Bhardwaj said Pandey was not present either in his office or his residence in Motihari, the district headquarters of East Champaran, at the time of the raid. A report from Motihari said the agriculture officer was on leave today. “He has gone to Patna for the treatment of his wife Reena Pandey,” a confidant of the officer said.
“Pandey had purchased several plots and flats in Patna, Bettiah, Motihari and in his Tikachhapar village in West Champaran,” the ADG (law and order) said.
In another operation, the EOU officials found disproportionate assets worth Rs 1.82 crore belonging to Bhuwaneshwar Prasad Singh, the motor vehicles inspector of East Champaran. Singh’s office and residential premises in Motihari, Patna and Samastipur were searched.
Bhardwaj said the vehicle inspector owned a four-storeyed palatial building spread over three cottahs at Hanuman Nagar in Patna and several plots in Patna, Hajipur in Vaishali, Bhagalpur and Samastipur. “Singh also owned movable property worth Rs 50.59 lakh,” he said.
Singh is a native of Rasulpur village under Mohiuddin Nagar block in Samastipur. Bhardwaj said documents related to purchase of six plots at Hajipur, three in Patna, two in Bhagalpur and eight at Dalsingsarai in Samastipur have been recovered.
He added that two separate cases of disproportionate assets were lodged against the agriculture officer and the vehicle inspector at the EOU’s police station in Patna on Monday. Subsequently, search orders of their offices and residential premises were obtained from the court.
