DIG under scanner for land deal
In a significant move to check corruption at higher places, the Assam government has directed the state vigilance department to start a regular inquiry against a deputy inspector-general of the Assam police in a case of disproportionate asset.
Informing that inquiry was initiated after state vigilance sleuths found clinching evidence of amassing disproportionate asset by the serving IPS officer, authoritative security sources told this newspaper that DIG Anurag Agarwala, who was earlier posted in Criminal Investigation Department (CID), bought a plot of land comprising an area of about 4.6 bigha in the posh Noonmati area of Guwahati.
The official record of the land registration office of the Kamrup Metro revealed that the valuation of the land was shown as `15 lakh per bigha on the registration paper and accordingly stamp duty was deposited. However, state revenue department has fixed the minimum circle rate of Noonmati area, one of the posh localities of the capital city, at `75 lakh per bigha.
Informing that the state vigilance department has also sought the report of the deputy commissioner in this regard, authoritative security sources said that the DIG, who was then posted as DIG CID is also in the doc for misusing his official position to get the land registered in lesser valuation thereby incurring a huge lose of stamp duty to the state exchequer.
Moreover the state vigilance department has also been scrutinising the income-tax return and declared assets of Mr Agarwal.
Earlier, soon after ordering the enquiry in the alleged case of disproportionate assets, the state government had transferred Mr Agarwal from CID.
It is also significant that the Assam special court has also directed the state vigilance department to file chargesheet against 200 state government employees, including many IAS and Assam civil services officers, in corruption cases pending due to delay in prosecution sanction.
Senior government functionaries who are facing the serious corruption charges included Alok Khare IAS, A.S. Tewari IAS, Ashish Kumar Bhutani IAS, H. Narzary , Ahmed Hussain, A.H. Choudhury and former Assam Public Service Commission chairman Tara Prasad Das, among others.
These officials were accused in corruption cases like siphoning off government money by submitting fake bills in the name of muster roll workers, illegal appointment of teachers under Operation Blackboard scheme and the greenhouse scam.
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