IAS officer laundered money, says vigilance

PATNA: The Special Vigilance Unit (SVU) on Thursday claimed to have found strong evidence to suggest that IAS officer Deepak Anand, who has been booked in a case of disproportionate assets, was involved in money laundering as well.
Sources said the the SVU sleuths recovered documents of money laundering from Godda in Jharkhand. The SVU sleuths also recovered branded jewellery worth around Rs 2 lakh and household items worth around Rs 4 lakh from the hostel room of Anand's wife Shikha Rani in Katihar on Thursday. Shikha is doing MD in radiology from the Katihar Medical College in Katihar.

The room, sealed on Wednesday night, was opened in the presence of Shikha who was taken from Patna to Katihar by the SVU sleuths on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday, the SVU carried out raids at four locations of Anand. The 2007-batch IAS officer's assets were till Wednesday evening assessed to be worth Rs 2.3 crore; that is, 1900% more than his known sources of income.

The raided locations included the Patna circuit house where the officer has been putting up since March 2017 as he was made to wait for posting after his transfer from Saran where he was the DM. The raids were also carried out at Anand's parental house in Sitamarhi and in-laws' house at Godda in Jharkhand besides the Katihar college hostel.

The SVU sources said the officer allegedly purchased two shops in the name of his wife at the P&M Mall in Patna in 2011 and 2016. "A sum of at least Rs 1.73 crore was spent for purchasing the two shops," an SVU official said.

According to the sources, the couple owns two bank lockers, including one in the State Bank of India's Gandhi Maidan branch.

Anand served in Patna, Katihar, Samastipur, Banka and West Chamaparan in different capacities before being transferred from Saran following the boat tragedy which claimed 24 lives on the Makar Sankranti day last year.

A gold medallist in MA in Philosophy from Patna University, the officer has authored a book 'How to Succeed in Civil Services'. As the Saran DM, he was given a commendation letter by the state government at the seventh establishment day of the Bihar State Road Construction Corporation in April 2016 for effective execution of road projects in his district.