Uttarakhand Vigilance arrests IAS officer in ‘disproportionate assets case’

Suspended IAS officer Ram Vilas Yadav's arrest came hours before a hearing in the case by the High Court on Thursday.

Dehradun: Suspended IAS officer Ram Vilas Yadav, accused of accumulating assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, was arrested by the Uttarakhand Vigilance Department on Wednesday. According to Amit Sinha, the director of the State Vigilance Department, Yadav was arrested late in the night after a day-long questioning by the vigilance officials. The IAS officer was accused to have accumulated assets disproportionate to his known sources of income while being the secretary of Lucknow Development Authority in Uttar Pradesh.

Yadav had reached the vigilance office at 12.48 pm, along with his advocate, where he was interrogated for about 14 hours. It has been learned that Yadav was asked about 70 questions in the 14 hours of interrogation by an SP of Vigilance, two Deputy SPs, six Inspectors and one Joint Director. Defence advocate Abhinav Sharma alleged that his client was being harassed.

According to Vigilance, Rs 15 lakh unaccounted cash was recovered from the account of Yadav's daughter. Besides, the vigilance officials have also claimed to have uncovered Rs 70 lakh fixed deposit from Yadav. Besides, Yadav could not give satisfactory answers to the property papers found at the bank locker and his Dehradun residence.

Yadav also did not answer about the sources of income and expenditure on the work done at his residence in Dilkusha Vihar Ranikothi Lucknow and the Janta Vidyalaya operated in Gudamba, an official said. Significantly, the total expenditure on the businesses has been found to be more than Rs 3 crore against an income which strongly points to the accumulation of disproportionate assets.

Yadav's arrest came hours before a hearing in the case by the High Court on Thursday. The Vigilance had also raided the premises owned by Yadav in UP and Bihar in connection with the case. Yadav, who was transferred from UP to Uttarakhand in 2019, was said to be close to the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government. On the complaint of social worker Hemant Kumar Mishra, the Uttarakhand government had ordered an open inquiry against him on January 9, 2019. Based on all the documents handed over to Uttarakhand by UP, the Vigilance Department had filed a report against Yadav in Uttarakhand as well.