It’s a story of greed, corruption and political patronage running into hundreds of crores of rupees that has exposed yet again the subterranean and mutually profitable links between the land mafia of Uttar Pradesh and powerful government officials. When Yadav Singh, engineer-in-chief of Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway, woke up at his palatial three-floor yellow painted house at Sector 51 Noida, on Thursday last week, he would hardly have anticipated that the morning would turn into a nightmare. By the time the weekend arrived, and investigators recovered `10 crore in cash and two kilograms of diamond jewellery worth `100 crore. At the time of going to press, 30 raids have already been conducted at 20 buildings in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and mysteriously Kolkata.
Income Tax officials suspect that Singh could be a front for other money launderers and political heavyweights and are conducting enquiries in that direction. The man who colleagues describe as soft-spoken and humble is being labelled India’s most corrupt government servant by enforcement agencies.
Income Tax investigators were surprised by the wealth accumulated by a humble public servant on a government salary of just over `1 lakh per month; Yadav Singh’s basic salary is `63,740. In their effort to dig out unaccounted money, more than 260 officers of the UP Income Tax (Investigation) and UP Police are examining large volumes of documents seized from Singh’s residence, 13 bank lockers and offices allegedly concerning crores of unaccounted money and properties. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Singh and his family may have accumulated around `1,000 crore as ill-gotten wealth. Raids are expected to continue for the best part of next week.
“The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is likely to join the probe under PMLA as documents seized from Singh’s residence indicate large-scale money laundering and in some cases round-tripping. Shell companies were used to deal in properties and money was routed through suspected mailbox companies based in Kolkata. Since it is a clear DA case, the state may request CBI to take up the probe,” sources said, adding that plots of Noida Development Authority were sold to these shell companies at subsidised rates, and later flogged to other companies at the market rate, accumulating huge windfall gains. A shell company is an entity that has no active business and usually exists only in name as a vehicle for another company’s business operations. Krishna Saini, DG (Investigation) Income Tax, Uttar Pradesh, told The Sunday Standard that taxmen suspect the involvement of money launderers and even some politicians in Singh’s deals.