DA case: Vigilance raids Muzaffarpur SSP’s house, office

PATNA: The special vigilance unit (SVU) on Monday raided the office and official residence of Muzaffarpur SSP Vivek Kumar and his parental house at Varun Vihar in Saharanpur and Arya Puri Colony at Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh for amassing assets disproportionate 300% more than his known sources of income. This is for the first time that raids have been conducted on a serving IPS officer in the state.
Sources said against the estimated savings of Rs33.3 lakh since 2005, the 2007 batch IPS officer and his wife Nidhi Karnwal, a housewife, are in possession of assets worth at least Rs1.06 crore at the time of lodging of an FIR by the SVU. Kumar was selected for Indian Revenue Service (IRS) in 2005.

“Jewellery worth at least Rs5.5 lakh, Rs6.25 lakh in cash, several land deeds, demonetised currency of Rs45,000 and huge amount of expenditure bills were seized from his official residence at Muzaffarpur,” SVU sources said. “Land deeds and expenditure bills are being scrutinized to ascertain their monetary value,” they said.

SVU sources said search at Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar premises were yet to start as family members were not at home.

“While Kumar’s father-in-law Ved Prakash Karnwal gets pension of Rs26,000, his mother-in-law Uma Rani is a housewife and brother-in-law Nikhil Karnwal has an annual income of hardly Rs2 lakh, as per their income tax returns,” sources said.

“The entire income of the IPS officer and his in-laws, calculated from 2005, is around Rs1.56 crore while they have movable assets worth Rs2.06 crore,” sources said, adding the IPS officer and his in-laws operate altogether 16 bank accounts.

They said Kumar and his wife have 21 joint fixed deposits (FD) worth Rs21 lakh. The FDs were made from the money transacted by Kumar’s father-in-law just before demonetisation on November 8, 2016.

They also said Nidhi has 23 FDs worth Rs22.7 lakh in her name while she and her mother hold four joint FDs worth Rs3 lakh.

“Kumar’s father-in-law and mother-in-law have 29 joint FDs worth Rs46.7 lakh while Nikhil and his father have 27 joint FDs worth Rs35.2 lakh,” SVU sources said, adding they have altogether 91 FDs worth Rs1.27 crore.

Kumar was posted as Muzaffarpur SSP on April 8, 2016. Before joining IRS, he had also served the Indian Railways after qualifying Indian Engineering Service (IES). Prior to that, he was assistant engineer with public works department of Uttarakhand government.