Sleuths of the Vigilance Investigation Bureau (VIB) found around Rs 6.25 crore in cash in a raid on a Bihar government engineer on Saturday. The amount is expected to increase as the counting of currency notes is still going on.
Executive engineer Sanjay Kumar Roy, who was raided, is working with the rural works department and is currently posted at Kishanganj, around 400km from the state capital Patna.
If this was not enough, jewellery and a large number of documents related to investment in real estate were also recovered. Their value is being assessed. A team of 14 VIB sleuths was involved in the raids.
“Three residential premises of Roy — two in Kishanganj and one in Patna — were raided by our men. During the raid, they came to know that he had hired a private, unemployed engineer Om Prakash Yadav to do his official work and stashed the ill-gotten wealth with him. Our team searched his residence too and found over Rs 4.25 crore in cash. Around Rs 1 crore cash has been recovered from Roy’s house in Patna,” VIB additional director general (ADG) Sunil Kumar Jha told The Telegraph.
Similarly, the residential premises of Roy’s cashier Khurram Sultan were raided in Kishanganj and Phulwarisharif in the Patna district. The sleuths recovered around Rs 1 crore from the two places.
“Our team has unearthed evidence of a huge investment in real estate by Roy. Most of the land was purchased in Patna, Purnea and other cities of Bihar in recent years. Several such purchases have been done between 2018 and 2021. We have registered a case of disproportionate assets against him under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988,” Jha said.
The executive engineer is a native of Samastipur district and had come into government service in 1991. The VIB has pegged his total salary at around Rs 1.75 crore during the entire service period. There is no other earning member in his family and his wife is a homemaker.
VIB officers said that the counting of notes was still going on with the help of four machines and the search operation was expected to continue till Monday. The bank lockers are yet to be opened.
The sleuths said that the seized cash pertains to his posting at Kishanganj only. They are looking for clues about his illegal earnings at previous postings and whether he could have stashed more cash in other places.
The vigilance department comes directly under chief minister Nitish Kumar. It has been mandated to act against corruption and corrupt government officials.
