VIJAYAWADA: There is more to the disproportionate assets case of Endowments department assistant commissioner Medepalli Vijayaraju than what has met the eyes of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials. While investigating the assets that Vijayaraju has accumulated disproportionate to his known sources of income, the ACB sleuths found that the assistant commissioner had registered endowment lands in Vijayawada in the name of a few private persons and realtors by issuing No Objection Certificates (NOCs).
Vijayaraju was taken into custody and the ACB officials are investigating the benamies. The properties identified during the raids are valued more than Rs 50 crore in the open market. In the raids conducted by the ACB sleuths at his Nidamanuru residence on Wednesday, the officials found Vijayaraju had a office in his house where he brought all the files which were otherwise to find a place in the office.
He was the most notorious in the department and worked from his house most of the times.
“During the raids, we found a few confidential files a on his table. Those files should be in the office. Bringing them to one’s residence is illegal. Shockingly, we also observed a few files belonging to Telangana,” said a senior ACB official.
According to ACB officials, Vijayaraju worked as an Executive Officer (EO) at Tirupathamma Temple inPenuganchiprolu mandal and collected the details of lands under the jurisdiction of the temple.
He issued 140 NOCs to Endowments lands in Krishna district. On November 2, the Endowments Department issued an NOC to 15.87 acres of land under Survey No: 5 A at Chennur village that the land does not belong to Sri Bhavaji Math from Singarayapalem village. The NOC further explained that during the regularisation of Endowments lands in the district, officials of the Estate department wrongly attributed the 15.87 acres land in Chennur village to Sri Bhavaji Matam and awarded him the said land.