This is an archive article published on October 1, 2015
Delhi: Court summons IAS officer, kin in assets case
Special CBI Judge Parveen Singh has also summoned two other accused in the case, Agarwal’s wife Rooma and father-in-law Mahender Prakash Garg, to appear before it.
A special CBI court has summoned IAS officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal, a former Commissioner of Land (disposal) with Delhi Development Authority, to appear before it on October 29 in a disproportionate assets case worth Rs 1.46 crore.
Special CBI Judge Parveen Singh has also summoned two other accused in the case, Agarwal’s wife Rooma and father-in-law Mahender Prakash Garg, to appear before it.
The court has taken cognizance of alleged offences of abetment under the sections of the IPC and under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Agarwal, a 1990-batch West Bengal cadre officer, was posted in DDA in September, 2009.
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He was also the private secretary to Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi when the latter was information and broadcasting minister, and later the water resources minister.
“There is sufficient material to prima facie show that accused Manoj Kumar Agarwal had acquired assets disproportionate to his known source of income and Rooma Agarwal had no source of income but had contributed to the amassing of wealth and thus, abetted in commission of offence. It is further established that Mahender Prakash Garg had also helped in amassing of disproportionate assets,” the judge stated.
The CBI has alleged the IAS officer acquired disproportionate assets worth Rs 1.46 crore from 1990 to 2008 and it was to the tune of 116 per cent of his income.
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It further alleged his father-in-law had helped in “amassing of this disproportionate assets” by gifting Rs 10 lakh to his daughter on February 8, 2003; Rs 5 lakh on February 12, 2003; and Rs 10 lakh on May 6, 2003. The CBI said Garg did not “have any financial capacity” to give such sums of money to her in 2003.
The CBI investigation also revealed there were nearly 30 bank accounts in the name of Agarwal and his spouse.
The CBI also said six plots worth crores of rupees at present — three in Dwarka and one each in posh localities of Gurgaon, Greater Noida and Kolkata — were allegedly bought in his wife’s name.
“He had acquired movable and immovable assets worth approximately Rs 45.80 lakh in his and his wife’s name during the period August 20, 1990 to June 30, 2008, which were disproportionate to his known sources of income,” CBI had earlier stated.
Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.
With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health.
His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award.
Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time.
Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More
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