PATNA: The Bihar government on Sunday confiscated the palatial house of an IAS officer accused of graft.
The house is likely to be turned into a school. The state government is close to completing the formalities for handing over the property to the human resource department and the Cabinet is expected to clear the proposal on Tuesday, government sources said.
The three-storey house on Bailey Road belonged to suspended IAS officer Shiv Shankar Verma. Sleuths of the special vigilance unit had raided it on July 6, 2007, and seized assets worth Rs 1.5 crore.
At today's rate, the house alone would fetch upward of Rs 5 crore. The 1981-batch IAS officer, a secretary in the minor irrigation department, was facing investigations into assets disproportionate to his sources of income.
Come Teacher's Day, and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar may fulfil his promise of turning illegal properties into much-needed schools.
In keeping with a provision included in the Bihar Special Courts Act, 2010, suspended IAS officer Shiv Shankar Verma's three-storey house may soon be open to schoolchildren. Patna DM Sanjay Kumar Singh confirmed the takeover of Verma's house: "I locked the building today. I have acted on the direction of the court."
HRD principal secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, who is authorized to sanction the school on residential premises, said, "We can open the school tomorrow if the building is transferred to the education department."
Revenue department officials, too, were tightlipped about the move to open the first-ever school in a confiscated building. Singh said Verma's building is now government property and the revenue department will decide on its transfer to HRD in a legal manner. Verma pleaded innocence but the court refused to entertain his application. Verma also urged the court to allow him to live in the building as a tenant but this too was rejected last week. Nitish has sought to take credit - and some may say justifiably so - for waging war against corruption much before anybody else through the route of legislation.
The house is likely to be turned into a school. The state government is close to completing the formalities for handing over the property to the human resource department and the Cabinet is expected to clear the proposal on Tuesday, government sources said.
The three-storey house on Bailey Road belonged to suspended IAS officer Shiv Shankar Verma. Sleuths of the special vigilance unit had raided it on July 6, 2007, and seized assets worth Rs 1.5 crore.
At today's rate, the house alone would fetch upward of Rs 5 crore. The 1981-batch IAS officer, a secretary in the minor irrigation department, was facing investigations into assets disproportionate to his sources of income.
Come Teacher's Day, and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar may fulfil his promise of turning illegal properties into much-needed schools.
In keeping with a provision included in the Bihar Special Courts Act, 2010, suspended IAS officer Shiv Shankar Verma's three-storey house may soon be open to schoolchildren. Patna DM Sanjay Kumar Singh confirmed the takeover of Verma's house: "I locked the building today. I have acted on the direction of the court."
HRD principal secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, who is authorized to sanction the school on residential premises, said, "We can open the school tomorrow if the building is transferred to the education department."
Revenue department officials, too, were tightlipped about the move to open the first-ever school in a confiscated building. Singh said Verma's building is now government property and the revenue department will decide on its transfer to HRD in a legal manner. Verma pleaded innocence but the court refused to entertain his application. Verma also urged the court to allow him to live in the building as a tenant but this too was rejected last week. Nitish has sought to take credit - and some may say justifiably so - for waging war against corruption much before anybody else through the route of legislation.
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