RTO staff couple’s assets 650 per cent over real income

BHOPAL:  Searches by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) sleuths at the residential premises of an assistant regional transport officer (ARTO) and his regional transport officer (RTO) office clerk wife in Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur district have led to a palatial house which resembles a 5-star tourist resort.
The triple-storeyed house of Jabalpur ARTO Santosh Pal and his RTO office clerk wife Rekha Pal located at Shatabdipuram Colony in Jabalpur, had uninvited guests on Wednesday night.

The house has a swimming pool, a mini theatre, a conference hall, and a separate high end-office for the RTO staffer couple. The house, according EOW sources, was valued at around Rs 4 crore. The EOW teams from Jabalpur and Sagar districts also raided the couple’s two other houses in Jabalpur. They recovered `16 lakh cash, high-end jewellery, besides two luxury vehicles and documents pertaining to couple’s investments elsewhere.

The search which continued on Thursday as well, also led to disclosure about the couple owning four more houses in Jabalpur city and a farmhouse spread over 1.4 acres in Deekhakheda village of the district.
“We’ve seized several other documents from the premises of the RTO office staffer couple, only after their scrutiny, the actual value of these assets  would be ascertained,” SP-EOW Devendra Singh Rajput said.

As per a statement by the EOW, a case has been filed against the couple under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988. “Initial probe suggests that the assets held by the couple could be 650% more than the income generated through their authentic sources,” the EOW statement said.