The police on Tuesday filed a First Information Report (FIR) against the former Mumbai Regional Congress president, Kripashankar Singh, on charges of cheating, forgery and corruption.
The FIR comes nearly a week after the Bombay High Court directed his prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act for amassing huge benami assets.
The court had directed the Police Commissioner to register an FIR against him and his family members, and attach his benami property worth crores of rupees, consisting of movable and immovable assets.
“An FIR has been registered today [on Tuesday] against Kripashankar Singh at the Nirmal Nagar Police Station,” Deputy Police Commissioner Nisar Tamboli told The Hindu .
Informed sources said the FIR was registered under Sections 13(1) D and 13(1) E of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA); and Sections 120(B), 409, 471, 420, 467, 468 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
While the Sections invoked under the PCA pertain to criminal misconduct by a public servant, the IPC Sections are about criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, forgery, cheating, causing disappearance of evidence, etc.
While hearing a Public Interest Litigation petition filed by Sanjay Dinanath Tiwari, the court last week observed on the “rags-to-riches” story of Mr. Singh that “the academic qualifications of the Respondent No.9 [Kripashankar Singh] are not commensurate with his status in life.”
“The acquisition of the flat, cash, agricultural land or gold jewellery are, therefore, testimony to support the petitioner's contention of ill-gotten wealth,” the court said.
Raising questions on several crores of rupees being gifted within the family, the son and the daughter-in-law owning BMWs on loans provided without any known security, lack of receipts and proper proofs for transactions worth crores of rupees, the court directed the police to enumerate the assets of the family while considering a report submitted by the Maharashtra Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in March last as the preliminary investigation.
The PIL gave out a list of 15 pieces of property, including lavish flats in upscale localities of the city, huge commercial complexes in the city and in other parts of the country, including at Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh.
The court observed that a large part of the real estate was purchased by the family only after Mr. Singh was embedded as a politician.
The petition stated that Mr. Singh had amassed a vast fortune by corrupt and illegal means and upon laundering monies received by him in the course of his public service which had not been accounted for and which required to be investigated.
