Bihar: EOU raids on education department deputy director yield DA worth Rs 1.8 crore

PATNA: The Economic Offences Unit (EOU) sleuths of the state police on Saturday conducted searches on the premises linked to Vibha Kumari, deputy director of higher education, in connection with a disproportionate assets (DA) case and unearthed unaccounted wealth worth more than Rs1.8 crore, which is expected to go up as the investigation was going till late evening.
The EOU team found that she had bought three DDA flats in Delhi's Rohini, one residential flat in Patna and four residential plots in Muzaffarpur and Vaishali districts. According to the EOU officers, Vibha made an attempt to hide the money earned from illegal means by showing a much lesser amount than the actual purchase amount in the registry deeds. It also came to light that she invested huge amount through her husband in shares/stock, mutual funds, bank fixed deposits and insurance policies.
The raiding team seized property papers, 41 bank passbooks, papers of bank fixed deposits and saving accounts for further probe in the DA case.
ADG of EOU Nayyar Hasnain Khan said separate teams raided three locations, including her flat near Saguna Mor and the office in Vikas Bhawan on Bailey Road in Patna, besides her in-laws' house at Dharampur in Vaishali district afte procuring search warrants from the the court on Saturday. "An FIR was registered against Vibha under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 on Friday and investigations were initiated before conducting the raid," he said.
"In the course of verification, it was found that before joining the government service, Vibha and her husband Ashok Kumar Sharma did not have any property other than the ancestral ones, nor did she have any other source of income other than salary. She built in her son's name a grand house in Vaishali where a cowshed and a pond for fish cultivation are under construction," an EOU officer said.
Vibha contributed as a public servant in Bihar Education Service in March, 1993 after qualifying the 37th competitive examination conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission. "Since the initial period of her service, her role was questionable and controversial and many allegations had been levelled against her. It has also been revealed that her husband had been dependent on Vibha for a long time and he had no direct source of income, but for the money earned illegally by her. By purchasing three SUVs in the name of her husband, she started running a travel agency 3-4 years ago from her flat at Vasikunj," says a part of the EOU press note.