VIJAYAWADA: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Wednesday unearthed properties worth more than `40 crore (market value) in raids on an environmental engineer and booked a case against him for possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.
The sleuths of ACB’s Central Investigation Unit (CIU) carried out raids at eight different places, including residences of Evani Satyanarayana, an environmental engineer in the regional office of the AP Pollution Control Board (APPCB), his son, daughter and his alleged benamies.
ACB officials said they conducted raids after receiving complaints about bribe demands made by the engineer for issuing environmental clearances and no objection certificates (NOCs) to industries.
ACB officials said the simultaneous raids began at around 6.15 am at the engineer’s residence in Maruti Co-op Housing Colony in Vijayawada and those belonging to his family members and close associates in Nellore, Visakhapatnam, Rajahmundry and Hyderabad. During the raids, officials noticed that Satyanarayana purchased six house plots, four flats and 4.4 acres of agricultural land apart from other movable assets.
ACB Director General (DG) RP Thakur said Satyanarayana was a native of Kothapeta of East Godavari District and joined government service as a junior engineer in 1989 and got promoted as an environmental engineer in 2000. Earlier, he worked in Rajahmundry, Visakhapatnam, Nellore, Vizianagaram, Kothagudem, Visakhapatnam and BHEL, Ramachandrapuram in Hyderabad in various capacities. “On credible information, a case of disproportionate assets was registered against Satyanarayana and searches were conducted at his house. During his tenure, he amassed more than Rs 40 crore worth of properties through bribes he collected for issuing environmental clearances and NOCs,” said Thakur.
Revealing details of the properties seized after the raids, Thakur said, “Satyanarayana possess 6 house plots, 4 flats and 4.46 acres of agricultural land. Most of the properties were registered in his wife and children’s names,” Thakur added. During investigation, ACB officials found that Satyanarayana was operating a bank locker at Gandhi Co-operative Bank in the name of his close associative Rama Krishna Raju.
“Raju himself confessed that he did not know what the accused officer’s wife Malathi kept in the locker. Satyanarayana also purchased a flat in Kondapur in Hyderabad in Raju’s name in 2017,” Thakur said. “We also found Rs 41 lakh as bank balance in Satyanarayana’s son E Pavan Kumar’s ICICI Bank account in Hyderabad. Satyanarayana was produced before the ACB special court and investigation is going on,” the ACB DG told.
