BENGALURU: Assets and valuables worth Rs 10 crore. If you are thinking this is the package of a business firm CEO, think again. A gardener working with the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has been trapped by the Anti- Corruption Bureau (ACB) and the following have been recovered from him.
Three houses - one each in JP Nagar, Kumaraswamy Layout and Doddakallasandra; two sites in Bengaluru; one site in Anekal; many small portions of commercial land along the Bengaluru-Mysuru Corridor which measure up to 2.5 acres; three small cars; two bikes; half a kg gold and one kg silver.
There’s more. The gardener resides in a three-bedroom house in Doddakallasandra with the ground floor rented out, while the other two houses too have tenants. Shivalingaiah, 59, was due to retire in just 13 days, but the ACB seems to have spoilt his retirement plans. The gardener, a Class D employee, was trapped following a tipoff.
Overall wealth around Rs 10 cr, says official
Shiva lingaiah’s monthly pay after 35 years of service in BDA is around Rs 35,000. The assets found in his possession are hugely disproportionate to his known sources of income. The ACB had been keeping a close watch on Shivalingaiah, who works at the Banashankari BDA office, for nearly four months before carrying out a raid on Friday morning. “We are yet to calculate the value of the sites and houses but his overall wealth could roughly be worth around `10 crore,” a top official said.
Shivalingaiah, who joined BDA in 1988, works under Assistant Executive Engineer, Ravindan. “His daughter is an engineer in the UK and is married to a British citizen while his son runs his own bar and restaurant in Bengaluru,” the official added. His wife is a homemaker. BDA engineers of different grades, case workers and even brokers in contact with officials have been raided in the past. “This is a very rare case in which a gardener has been raided. And we are baffled by his acquired wealth. He has somehow managed to stay on in the Banashankari branch for very long,” he added. A disproportionate assets case has been booked against him.