Mumbai: Civic engineer booked in assets case

Officials of Maharashtra Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Friday booked a retired BMC executive engineer, Harishchandra Mishra, for allegedly amassing wealth disproportionate to his known source of income. His assets were around 183 per cent more than his known source of income.

The ACB conducted a search operation on Friday at Mishra’s farmhouse in Thane district and found gold jewellery worth Rs33 lakh, Rs5.55 lakh cash and several bank accounts belonging to Mishra and his family members.

According to the ACB official, in 1976, Mishra joined the service in a BMC department as a junior engineer and had worked on several posts at the BMC and later took a voluntary retirement in 2011.

“In 2009, we had received complaints against Mishra for obtaining disproportionate assets and carried an inquiry. During the investigation, we came to know that Mishra had a property worth Rs2.22 crore more than his source of income during his service period from 1976 to May 2011, till the time he took the voluntary retirement,” said the ACB official.

“We have called Mishra and he was given enough opportunity to provide details of his properties and source of income. But he could not give an accurate account of Rs 2.22 crore property, which is in his possession. Following on that a case was registered against Mishra, his wife and son for Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988,” said the officer.