Patna, Feb. 8: The Bihar government is formulating a policy on how to use the out-of-the-state confiscated property of corrupt officers.

The process of property confiscation has been initiated against 45 public servants, including 30 gazetted officers, under the Bihar Special Courts Act, 2009. “Over a dozen officers booked on the charges of corruption possess unaccounted wealth outside the state. Till date, there is no clear guidelines on how to use them,” the officer said.

Against this backdrop, the vigilance department has sought guidelines from the government regarding the use of such confiscated property.

The officer said a team of administrative officials had to face the ire of inmates of the house of suspended IAS officer S.S. Varma when the former had gone to confiscate his (Varma’s) property in UP on the order of the special vigilance court recently. Varma, who has been charged with accumulating disproportionate assets worth Rs 1.44 crore, owns two plots in UP. The team handed over the order of the court to the district authorities concerned and returned to the city. The plots will be confiscated in due course.

“Disproportionate assets of the public servants are confiscated on the order of the court. So there is no confusion over confiscation of ill-gotten property of the public servants. But as far as the use of the property outside the state is concerned, we are groping in the dark,” a senior vigilance department officer said.

Besides Varma, several other tainted officers have property outside the state. During investigation, the officials of the special vigilance unit, formed to take action against corrupt babus, learnt that former director-general of police Narayan Misra (now retired) owns a flat at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. The special vigilance unit sleuths also stumbled upon documents pertaining to two plots (21.5 decimals) of Misra at Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.

A special vigilance court last week issued an order with regard to confiscation of assets of Misra, against whom a disproportionate assets case was lodged in 2007. Misra and his family members have been charged with accumulating disproportionate assets worth Rs 1.4 crore.

Similarly, former state drugs controller Y.K. Jaiswal has his unaccounted property at Varanasi in UP. The vigilance department has moved the designated court to issue an order for confiscation of his property.

Recently, the vigilance investigation bureau submitted a proposal to the special vigilance court in Patna seeking confiscation of the property of the BJP MLA from Katoria, Sonelal Hembram. He joined politics after his retirement in 2002. He has been charged with accumulating disproportionate assets worth Rs 25 lakh when he was posted as deputy excise commissioner at the state secretariat. Hembram also has property in Jharkhand.

The other government employees facing confiscation proceedings are — revenue officer Yogendera Prasad Singh, engineer Srikant Prasad, former divisional forest officer Bhola Prasad and former Rajbhasha Parishad director B.N. Chowdhary.

So far, disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 35 crore have been detected.