Food inspector is worth Rs 10cr – THE TIMES OF INDIA

The state vigilance bureau sleuths raided the house of a food inspector, Surendra Kumar, on Road No. 8 at AshokNagar in KankarbaghColony here on Wednesday and unearthed assets worth over Rs 10 crore disproportionate to his known source of income.
The team, led by SP Parvez Akhtar, raided Kumar’s 4-storeyed building and seized documents suggesting purchase of 38 kattha land in Ashok Nagar, 23 acres land near the famous hot water spring in Rajgir, and agreement paper for purchasing 60 acres land adjacent to the 23 acres land. All these plots of land were purchased in the name of Buddha Educational Trust. Six bank accounts in the SBI, PNB, Axis Bank and IDBI besides two bank lockers, insurance policy worth Rs 9 lakh and jewellery weighing one kg gold and 500gm silver were also seized. Akhtar said Kumar, posted in the state capital, was not present at his residence during the raid.
Kumar had joined the health department in 1979 as a clerk and after six years he got promoted to the rank of drug inspector in the same department. Earlier, he was posted in Bhagalpur. In 2008, he was shifted to the headquarters as food inspector.
Kumar had, in fact, become a terror for the hotels and fast food joints’ owners. A bureau official said such was his terror that Kumar didn’t allow a multinational fast food chain to operate in the state capital for well over a fortnight until a sum of Rs 15 lakh was paid to him. That apart, he was allegedly on the payroll of several food joints in the state capital, the official said, and added that the bureau could not act against him earlier as it was going on with their consent.
ADG (vigilance) P K Thakur said the bureau had started receiving complaint against Kumar during the latter’s stint in Bhagalpur. "We were closely watching his activities," Thakur said.
Akhtar said Kumar had opened an ITI in front of his house in Ashok Nagar and was planning to open a dental college and a medical college in Rajgir for which he was on a land-purchasing spree.
The bureau, after receiving complaints against Kumar, initiated a preliminary inquiry and found that he had shown Rs 25.35 lakh as legal source of income and another Rs 32 lakh procured as loan from a bank for opening the ITI. Akhtar further said it was detected that though his legal source of income was to the tune of Rs 57.35 lakh, he had declared to the state government a whopping Rs 1.17 crore as his income. After the documents scrutiny, it was found that he was having assets worth Rs 5.30 crore.
The raid was going on till late evening. On the basis of documents seized, the SP vigilance said that Kumar’s assets might be assessed over Rs 10 crore. He further said prior to carrying out the raid, the vigilance bureau had lodged an FIR (19/2013) on April 16, 2013 and then procured a search warrant from the special vigilance court.