Ex-top UP bureaucrat held for corruption

NEW DELHI: The CBI arrested on Tuesday former Uttar Pradesh (UP) chief secretary Akhand Pratap Singh for misusing his office.

“He was nabbed while trying to flee a farmhouse in south Delhi,” an officer of the agency said.  The CBI had registered a case against the top bureaucrat, who is said to be close to former UP chief minister Mulayam Singh, in March 2005 for possessing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income. The agency had information that Singh had accumulated wealth worth Rs300 crore by the time he retired in 2003, and raided his houses in Delhi, Kanpur and Lucknow.

“Singh has 84 immovable assets and over 100 bank accounts. It took us almost two years to get details of his assets and establish how he had misused his office to gather wealth illegally,” the CBI official said, adding, “Most of his immovable properties are in Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, Lucknow and Nainital.”

Interestingly, a report of 10 most corrupt bureaucrats by the IAS cadre in UP four years ago had listed Singh among the top three. “We were forced to arrest him because he had stopped cooperating in the probe and had also begun threatening witnesses,” said the officer, adding that Singh was also charged with forging documents in the name of his father, wife, children and friends to accumulate wealth.

“While opening a bank account, he had forged the signatures of his father and friend. Both of these men had died a long time ago,” the officer said.

He said Singh purchased illegal property in the name of three firms floated by him.