He had joined as assistant engineer at Nawada district board office in 1982 at a monthly salary of a little over Rs 600. About 35 years later, he has acquired property worth Rs 2.1 crore from unaccounted sources.
Assistant engineer Shailesh Kumar Singh's unaccounted wealth was unearthed by the vigilance investigation bureau, which carried out simultaneous raids at his four properties in Patna and Nawada on Saturday.
Vigilance superintendent of police Shiv Kumar Jha said the raids on the assistant engineer's office and residential premises yielded unaccounted wealth worth Rs 1.62 crore. The raiding teams stumbled upon documents related to purchase of 76 plots, 30 passbooks besides cash and jewellery.
An investigating officer said Shailesh had made major investments in real estate. Documents seized from his house in Nawada suggested that he had purchased 48 plots measuring 524 decimal at his village, Bali in Nawada.
The plots were bought in the name of Shailesh's wife Meena Sinha. He owned a multi-storied house spread over four acres at VIP Colony in Nawada, which is estimated to be worth Rs 30 lakh.
In Nawada's Warsaliganj, he has two plots measuring 32 decimal. At Kashichak, he owned eight plots measuring 211 decimal.
At Gonwa, Shailesh has eight plots measuring 63 decimal, at Shahpur 4 decimal, at Bhudaul 7.5 decimal, at Nadariganj 14.5 decimal and Nawada Bypass road 8.5 decimal. In Patna's Alka Colony (Sandalpur), Shailesh owned a house valued at Rs 20 lakh.
'The value of the land has been estimated on the basis of the sale deeds and not the market rate,' the investigating official said.
The seized documents revealed that Shailesh had Rs 10 lakh in deposits and invested Rs 2.6 lakh in insurance policies.
Cash amounting to Rs 95 lakh and jewellery worth Rs 10 lakh were also recovered during the raids at his houses in Nawada. 'A total of 30 bank accounts have been frozen and the locker allotted to him will be opened later,' the officer said.
A few sale deeds of the land purchased in Patna and Delhi have also been recovered from his house.
The scrutiny of the documents was being carried out by the officials of the bureau, which registered a case of assets disproportionate to known source of income, on Saturday.
Shailesh is not the lone engineer to face the heat of †zero tolerance’policy of the chief minister Nitish Kumar. Authoritative sources said thatmore than 25 engineers of different departments have fallen victim toanti-corruption drive launched by the vigilance bureau and the economicoffences unit since 2005.
Their unaccounted wealth over Rs.50 crore had been detected. Encouragedwith its success, the bureau has announced to suitably reward the peoplefor sharing information about corrupt public servants, which led torecovery of unaccounted property.
