Mumbai: Former CGST official, wife convicted in disproportionate assets case

The court found Prasiddh Dubey guilty under the Prevention of Corruption Act and directed him to pay a fine of Rs 10 lakh, while his wife Vimla, was convicted under the Act for aiding him. The court suspended the sentence against Vimla and granted her bail, while rejecting a plea by Dubey to suspend his sentence.

According to submissions made by special public prosecutor Vimal Soni, an FIR was filed in 2018 by the CBI against the two under sections of the anti-corruption Act, alleging that assets to the extent of over Rs 90 lakh were found in their possession, disproportionate to Dubey’s known source of income from the salary of his service from 1994-2018.

The court concluded that the percentage of the disproportionate assets was 56.20 per cent. Dubey, through his lawyers, had questioned the validity of the sanction given to prosecute him and had submitted that his wife had an independent source of income, through sources including her garment business, renting of properties and agriculture.

It was claimed that the properties were purchased by her without any assistance from him. The court, however, said that the onus was on the accused to explain the unaccounted cash credits in their bank balance and various investments made by them in immovable properties but no satisfactory explanation was given.

“Accused no. 1 (Dubey) public servant accumulated assets in the name of accused no.2 (Vimla) as and by way of a smokescreen to shield the ill-gotten assets accumulated by him by abusing his official position. Accused no 2 being wife of (Dubey) is guilty of accumulating disproportionate assets to his known source of income and at the same time, failed to satisfactorily explain the nature and source of such disproportionate assets,” special judge S H Gwalani said.