The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Thursday raided 15 locations including those in Raipur, Bilaspur, Surguja, Durg and Koriya districts linked to a total of nine officials of Forest Department and Social Welfare Department in Chhattisgarh.
The ACB team included 10 Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and 25 Income tax Department officials.
In the joint operation, the ACB and the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of police conducted raids at the residences of Dantewada District Education Officer (DEO) Subhash Ganjir, Assistant Director of Industrial Health & Safety Department Avinash Gunjal, Executive Engineer in Public Health Engineering Department PHED (Korba) KS Chandra, Additional Director of Department of Social Welfare Ml Pandey, Executive Engineer, PMGSY (Bilaspur) Pradeep Gupta, Sub Divisional Officer (SDO) , Forest Department, Rameshwar Prasad Sahu, Assistant Food Officer (AFO) (Bilaspur) AK Tamboli, Joint Director of Agriculture Department/ Registrar of IGAU Salikram Verma and Nodal Officer of Cooperative Bank (Janjgir) Shravan Singh, Additional Director General (ADG) (ACB) Mukesh Gupta said in a press conference held here.
When a search was conducted based on the complaint, these officials were found in possession of assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. A case has been registered against them in this regard, he said.
Gupta said that in the search conducted so far at residences of Additional Director of Department of Social Welfare Ml Pandey, documents pertaining to one well furnished bungalow at Agroha Society in Raipur, one duplex at Kota and Adarsh Nagar localities in Raipur and Durg wherein a private school had been running and several other plots and land worth several crores of rupees were detected besides a total of Rsone crore cash deposited in several bank accounts.
During a search at Dantewada District Education Officer (DEO) Subhash Ganjir’s residences, Rs8.71 lakh cash, a factory (worth Rs90 lakh), a documents related to 40 plots of land, 50 tola gold and jewellery, two bank lockers and three houses worth Rs1.50 crore in Vrindavan Colony, Dhanpunji and Dharampura were detected.
Assistant Director of Industrial Health & Safety Department Avinash Gunjal owns two bungalows and plot at VIP Estate in Raipur worth Rs1.50 crore besides documents of 50, 000 sq ft land in Kamal Vihar, 5 hectares of agriculture land in Pacheda and Chataud villages of Raipur along with 10 hectare agriculture land and 5000 sq ft land at Dhamna in Nagpur, Gupta said adding, the team also recovered documents related to two plots worth crores of rupees at Anandam World City.
He said that two properties worth Rs60 lakh near Magneto Mall in Raipur, a duplex bunglow worth Rs80 lakh in Bilaspur, land, shop, flat and bank lockers, car, bike and gold and silver jewellery were found in the residence of PMGSY (Bilaspur) Pradeep Gupta.
Similarly, the team found disproportionate assets, documents related to Benami properties from the residences of other officials too, Gupta said while adding that searches are still going on.