Bangalore: Lokayukta police raid 7 officials, unearth illegal assets worth crores

Bangalore, Aug 31 (DHNS): The Lokayukta police said on Friday they conducted simultaneous raids on seven government officials in Bangalore, Gulbarga, Hubli and Yadgir, suspecting they to be owning assets far beyond their known sources of income.

“We conducted raids on 21 premises belonging to the accused officials and unearthed illegal assets worth more than Rs 4.5-crore,” Lokayukta ADGP H N Satyanarayana Rao said. “Criminal cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, were registered against them in Bangalore City, Bangalore Rural, Dharwad, Gulbarga and Yadgir.”

Reports were generated based on information against four officials from Bangalore — A G Rangaiah, Executive Engineer, BBMP, Yelahanka; Chikkaiah, Director, Karnataka Institute of Leather Technology; K Krishnamurthy, Inspector of Excise, Shanthinagar and K Prakash, Food Inspector, Yelahanka Division, Rao said.

He further said that reports were also generated on G Prakashmurthy, Secretary, KSRTC Employees’ Credit Co-operative Society, Hubli; Shivashankarappa Manoli, Superintendent, RTO, Gulbarga and Bandappa, Project Director, District Urban Development Cell, Yadgir.

According to a statement issued by the Lokayukta police, immovable assets worth Rs 59.26 lakh and movable assets worth Rs 48.20 lakh were found during raids at Chikkaiah’s properties whereas his present basic salary is Rs 29,625. The percentage of disproportionate assets (DA) was 143.6 per cent.

Rangaiah, who gets a basic salary of Rs 38,000, was found owning immovable assets worth Rs 55 lakh and movable assets worth Rs 17.09 lakh. The DA percentage is 85.71 per cent.

Basic salary

Prakash has 146.10 per cent of DA assets with immovable properties worth Rs 71.76 lakh and movable assets worth Rs 72.36 lakh. Krishnamurthy, who earns a basic salary of Rs 21,000, was found to have movable assets worth Rs 32.48 lakh and immovable assets worth Rs 32.13 lakh. The percentage of DA was 84.19, Rao said.

In the case of Prakashmurthy, whose present pay scale is Rs 16,000-Rs 28,010, the percentage of DA was 156.01 per cent. He owned immovable property worth Rs 36.69 lakh and movable assets worth Rs 13.33 lakh.

Manoli was found to be owning immovable assets worth Rs 58.65 lakh and movable assets of Rs 73.76 lakh. He had highest DA percentage among the lot: 275.05 per cent.

While Bandappa had immovable assets worth Rs 1.03 crore and movable assets worth Rs 1.29 crore, his percentage of DA was 138.92 per cent.