He is a non-gazetted employee and his monthly income is around Rs 35,000. Yet, he has accumulated disproportionate assets worth over Rs 10 crore.
Meet the crorepati food inspector of Patna Surendra Kumar. The state vigilance investigation bureau on Wednesday searched his palatial building and a private industrial training institute (ITI) run by his close relative at Ashok Nagar in Kankerbagh on Wednesday.
During the search operation, the officials stumbled upon ornaments weighing about 1.5kg, documents related to purchase of 38 cottahs of land at Ashok Nagar in Patna and 23 acres of land at Rajgir in Nalanda. Kumar had planned to buy 60 cottahs of land at Rajgir to set up a medical and an engineering college under the banner of Buddha Educational Trust.
Superintendent of police (vigilance) Parwez Akhthar said a vigilance bureau team headed by deputy superintendent of police Maharaja Kanishka Kumar Singh searched the four-storeyed building of the food inspector on the basis of a tip-off on huge property amassed by the food inspector during his service spanning about three decades.
Akhtar said the bureau officials have come to know about his six bank accounts and two bank lockers. “The search is still going on. The value of the assets disproportionate to his known sources of income is yet to be assessed. But it would not be less than Rs 10 crore,” he added.
Preliminary investigation revealed that Kumar was appointed as a BCG (laboratory) technician in the health department in 1979 at a monthly salary of Rs 250. He was promoted as health inspector in 1985 at a monthly salary of Rs 5,280. Subsequently, he was made the food inspector in 1988 and posted in Patna. The last monthly salary he got from the department was about Rs 35,000.
“The bureau had received complaints against Kumar during his posting in Bhagalpur. Since then he was under the surveillance of the bureau. Finally, a disproportionate assets case was lodged at the bureau police station in Patna yesterday (on Tuesday) and the search was launched after obtaining permission from the court today,” the SP (vigilance) told The Telegraph.
In his declaration of his movable and immovable property, Kumar had told the department that he owned property worth Rs 1.17 crore. He bought a cottah of land in Kankerbagh in 2009 in the name of his son Piyush Chandra at a cost of Rs 3.19 lakh. The value of the said property is estimated to be over Rs 20 lakh.
He had purchased two cottahs of land at Ashok Nagar at a cost of Rs 40 lakh on which he built a four-storeyed building. Besides, he purchased 13 cottahs and six dhurs of land at Ashok Nagar in the name of his wife Geeta Devi. An ITI constructed on more than 13 cottahs of land was being run by Kumar’s niece Manju Kumari, the SP (vigilance) added.
