Acharya conceals property worth Rs 1.5crore
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The family of former home secretary B.P. Ach-arya, the prime accused in the Emaar scam, has owned the second floor also in Surana House on Khairatabad main road, Hyderabad.
Documents reveal that Mr Acharya's son, Nikhil, was gifted the second floor, measuring 4808sq ft, by his grandmother, Mrs Manj-eet Rakkar.
The Deccan Chronicle reported on Thursday that Mr Acharya's family had acquired the third floor in Surana House, a commercial complex, at half the price for which the Suranas sold the fifth floor.
Mrs Rakkar paid Rs 45 lakh and got the property registered in her name on June 30, 2004 through the document No. 1578/04.
Within two years, she purchased the third floor, paying Rs 45 lakh, and gifted both the floors to Mr Acharya's son, Nikhil.
Significantly, neither Mr Acharya nor his wife Mrs Ranjeev R. Acharya, an IAS officer, has mentioned the two floors, which at the present market value cost more than Rs 1.5 crore, in their annual property returns.
The Ministry of Pers-onnel website, which has the property returns of all the IAS officers, shows that Mr Acharya has declared his lone asset of a house at Marredpally, Hyderabad.
His wife declared two more assets, one each of 2.5 acres of agricultural land and 0.25 acres in her native state of Punjab.
The High Court has recently made it clear that all the assets should be declared by officials irrespective of the nature of their acquisition.
The officials are not allowed to decide whether or not to declare the assets on the specious pleas, it stated.
which would defeat the very object of the rule itself.
The law relating to the declaration of assets was a tool which helped to bring the corrupt to book, the court said leaving it to The officials were not allowed to decide whether or not to declare the assets on the specious pleas, which would defeat the very object of the rule itself.
Asked about the omission of the Khairatabad property from the returns, a senior official said several officials did not disclose the properties registered in the name of their children even if they were majors.
Recently, the government has taken a position in the case involving director-general of police V. Dinesh Reddy and another senior police officer, Mr Umesh Kumar, that the property acquired by the kin of the officers through their own sources of income need not be disclosed.
The High Court, however, turned down the government's argument and made it clear that all the assets should be declared irrespective of the nature of their acquisition.
Maintaining that the law relating to the declaration of assets was a tool which helped to bring the corrupt to book, the court said leaving it to the officials to decide whether or not to declare the assets on the specious pleas would defeat the very object of prescribing the rule itself.
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