Senior IAS officer was facing CBI probe for IMA scam

Senior IAS officer B.M. Vijay Shankar, who was found dead at his house on Tuesday, was recently implicated in the IMA Ponzi Scheme in July 2019. He had also been arrested and was out on bail. He was presently posted as Additional Mission Director, Sakala.

As recently as first week of June, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), now probing the IMA scam, had sought sanction from the State government to prosecute Mr. Shankar and three other revenue officers for their alleged role in the scam. The request is still pending with the State government, sources said.

Mr. Shankar was Deputy Commissioner, Bengaluru (Urban), when the IMA scam broke in June 2019, when IMA founder Mansoor Khan fled the country duping thousands of investors in the name of ‘Islamic banking’. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the State police formed to probe the scandal, led by senior officer B.R. Ravikante Gowda, arrested Mr. Shankar for allegedly taking a bribe of ₹1.5 crore from Mansoor Khan for giving IMA a clean chit during an internal probe.

The SIT had also recovered the alleged bribe money from a builder who the IAS officer had reportedly invested it with. Mr. Shankar was named as an accused in the chargesheet that SIT prepared and CBI eventually filed in the court. The CBI had recently registered a fresh case and sought sanction to prosecute him, assistant commissioner L.C. Nagaraj and two other officers. It has already been granted permission to prosecute two senior IPS officers from the State in connection with the scam.