DA case: Abhay Pathak’s driver appears before Odisha Vigilance

Bhubaneswar: Arrested and suspended IFS officer Abhay Kant Pathak’s driver today appeared before the Odisha Vigilance for questioning. During raid by the Vigilance officials, around Rs 20 lakh was seized from the house of the driver recently.

This apart, five bank employees also deposed before the anti-corruption agency as they were summoned earlier. Vigilance officers had detected cash deposits of about Rs 9.4 crores made in the bank accounts of Abhay Kant Pathak’s son Akash Kumar Pathak.

A raid was also conducted by the Special Investigation Team of the Odisha Vigilance at Abhay Kant Pathak’s official residence here today.

The father-son duo has been arrested for allegedly amassing assets worth crores disproportionate to their known sources of income. The bureaucrat was found in possession of disproportionate assets of Rs 9,35,42,594 beyond his known sources of income (435% of total income from all known sources), which he could not account for satisfactorily.

Odisha Vigilance has formed a 20-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) for probe. Since huge cash deposits have been made in private banks through deposit slips and ATM counters and high value transactions have been made in the accounts, details of operations of the concerned banks in this regard are being probed. Details of income tax returns, investments in shares, mutual funds and other market instruments are also being ascertained. Further, the aspects of benami transactions and properties are also being looked into by the anti-corruption agency.

Also read- SIT To Examine Persons Associated With DA Case Against Odisha Cadre IFS Officer.

During the first meeting of the SIT’s core team, a decision was taken to serve notices under Section 160 of CrPC to people related to the disproportionate assets case for appearance at the Vigilance cell.