Investigators with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Thursday searched the houses and offices of the now suspended bureaucrats, T.N. Chikkarayappa and S.C. Jayachandra, in Bengaluru. Last week, Income Tax officials had raided and seized crores of rupees from them.
According to a senior ACB official, several teams conducted simultaneous searches on the houses and offices of Mr. Chikkarayappa and Mr. Jayachandra in Bengaluru and also on the houses of Mr. Chikkarayappa’s relatives at KGF in Kolar district. Documents pertaining to disproportionate assets were seized, said an official.
The team searched the residence of Anandamurthy, a distant relative of Mr. Chikkarayappa. He informed officials that he was not involved in any of the illegal activities. To allay the suspition of ACB officials, he took them to the KGF branch of Canara Bank from where he had taken loans of Rs. 9 crore for his farming operations. “I still owe the bank more than Rs. 1 crore,” Mr. Anandamurthy said.
There are many accounts the ACB was probing into, which were not taken into consideration by the Central agencies earlier, a senior police officer said.
Mr. Chikkarayappa and Mr. Jayachandra have been booked under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act by the ACB. “The seized documents pertaining to movable and immovable properties are being verified,” said a senior ACB official.
The Central Bureau of Investigation too is probing Mr. Jayachandra’s role in the racket.
