In fresh trouble for suspended IPS officer Amitabh Thakur, an RTI activist on Tuesday complained to Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta accusing him and his wife of having assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.
RTI activist Sanjay Sharma submitted his complaint to Lokayukta N K Mehrotra.
“Sanjay Sharma has submitted 60-70 page complaint today mainly alleging that Thakur misused his position as IG and both, he and his wife, possessed properties disproportionate to their known sources of income,” a Lokayukta office source said.
Mehrotra, when contacted, said that he has not yet seen the complaint in detail and would start action only after an investigation.
Activist Sharma said that he has given the complaint on three points and requested for a probe into the sources of income through which the couple bought “massive properties”.
“Prima facie it appears that both the husband and wife posses some 57,000 square feet of residential land, which cannot be bought by an honest public servant and so I have demanded that the sources of the income through which it has been acquired should also be probed,” he said.
Thakur on Monday submitted details of his immovable assets as directed by the state government.
According to the details, Thakur has one house at Gomti Nagar and a plot in Muzaffarpur (Bihar) -- which he “got before” joining the Indian Police Service.
While his wife has three properties in Sitamarhi and Patna in Bihar and six properties in Lucknow, “procured through her own income”.
Thakur had submitted the details after a notice was slapped on him seeking information about his properties by the UP government.
In the notice sent by IG (Personnel) B P Jogdand on Saturday dated July 16, Thakur was informed that an open inquiry has been initiated against him by the Vigilance Establishment and he needed to present the details of moveable and immovable properties of his own and that of his dependents on six given points by July 19.
In a related development, Thakur’s plea for a CBI probe into the rape allegations against him has been referred to department of personnel and training by the Union home ministry.
According to his wife Nutan Thakur, an RTI activist, the MHA in a letter dated July 16 sent to Thakur stated that his “request was a subject matter pertaining to DoPT, which was CBI’s administrative authority, hence, DoPT is requested to take action as deemed appropriate.”
The state home department, meanwhile, appointed an enquiry officer to go into the charges framed against Thakur, who dubbed the appointment as “against law” and said he would challenge it in CAT.
Suspended on July 13, Thakur was served a 200-page chargesheet on July 15 charging him with dereliction of duty, arbitrariness and indiscipline, and he submitted a 30-page reply saying he was “not at fault”.
“Their immovable properties should also be investigated,” Sharma said, adding he has also demanded a probe to see if any racket was going on through their NGOs since the woman who has levelled rape charges has claimed that she had been criminally assaulted on the promise of a job.
Sharma, who has accused Thakur of misusing his office and position, said his complaints are based on the replies that he got to his RTI queries and also contain some points of those queries that remained unanswered.
Meanwhile, Thakur called this action against the rules and politically motivated and said he would challenge it before the Central Administrative Tribunal.
The UP government has appointed a chairman, police recruitment and promotion board V K Gupta as the enquiry officer and appointed IG (Personnel) B P Jogdand as the representing officer.
The Inspector-General rank officer had met additional secretary in the ministry of home affairs Anant Kumar Singh in New Delhi on July 13 and had sought a CBI probe into the rape case slapped against him.
The IPS officer has alleged that ever since his wife’s Lokayukta complaint against state mines minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, they were facing all kinds of charges including “false” rape case and threat by Mulayam Singh Yadav on July 10.
Thakur stirred a political row by releasing the text and audio of the conversation purportedly carrying Mulayam’s voice.
