Sleuths of Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) raided residential property and offices pertaining to two government officials in Hubballi and Dharwad on Tuesday and found ₹59 lakh in cash and assets worth crores of rupees in the house of one.
The searches were carried out by Superintendent of Police (ACB) B.S. Nemagouda and Deputy Superintendent of Police Venugopal in the houses pertaining to executive engineer of minor irrigation Devaraj Kalmesh Shiggavi at Rajiv Nagar, Balaji Nagar (near Bengeri) and Kotilinga Nagar in Hubballi. The searches began early in the morning and continued for several hours.
According to Mr. Nemagouda, during the raids on the property of Mr. Shiggavi, they found ₹59.84 lakh in cash, ₹30 lakh in savings accounts, 500 grams of gold, four kilograms of silver and household articles worth ₹ 3 lakh.
Documents pertaining to a two-storey luxurious house at Rajiv Nagar and a duplex house at Kotilinga Nagar were recovered. The estimated cost of both the buildings is around ₹1.16 crore. The team also seized documents pertaining to two residential plots at Kotilinga Nagar worth ₹50,000 each.
Documents pertaining to 26 acres of agriculture land at Inam Neeralagi of Hanagal taluk in Haveri district and Devara Gudihal in Hubballi taluk worth ₹38 lakh, two four-wheelers worth ₹8 lakh were also seized. The executive engineer who was recently transferred from Hubballi was awaiting posting. The raids followed complaints about Mr. Devaraj amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of his income.
Another team of ACB led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Mahantesh Jiddi carried out searches at the office and official residence of Srinivas, serving as assistant conservator of forests (Social Forestry) in Dharwad. During the search operations that lasted three hours, several documents have been seized.
ACB sources said that searches were conducted at the officer’s houses in Chitradurga and Davangere and also at his farmhouse. There were several complaints against Mr. Srinivas too, the sources said.