A month after Amit Lodha, a 1998 batch IPS officer, was promoted to the post of Additional Director General (ADG), the Bihar government has set up a committee to consider the possibility of clearance of prosecution against the officer in the disproportionate assets case.
Earlier, as the case was pending, Lodha approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) for delay in her promotion. CAT ruled in favour of Lodha. Following that the government promoted Lodha and posted him as ADG State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB).
The committee will also see whether the CAT order can be challenged. The senior official involved in the case said that prosecution clearance is required for filing a charge sheet against the officer in the disproportionate assets case and the process will proceed after getting clearance. The matter is with the Special Vigilance Unit (SVU) of the Bihar government.
What are the charges against Lodha?
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has registered a case against IPS officer Amit Lodha and his wife, Komudi Lodha, for allegations of disproportionate assets (DA) and other irregularities.
Amit Lodha is a well-known figure due to his book Bihar Diaries and its Netflix adaptation Khakee: The Bihar Chapter.
The DA case against Lodha was initially filed by the state vigilance department in December 2022 when he served as the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the Magadh range in Bihar. The ED has now expanded the investigation, focusing on the alleged accumulation of wealth beyond their known sources of income.
Earlier, the Patna high court had rejected senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Amit Lodha's plea to quash a first information report (FIR) related to a disproportionate asset (DA) case lodged against him by the special vigilance unit (SVU) and directed the agency to take the investigation of this case to its logical end within stipulated time.
Income more than three times
In the present DA case, as per the allegations and the evidence which have been collected so far, it is contended that the petitioner has accumulated assets valued more than ₹7 crores even as his total income from all legal sources would not be more than ₹2 crores in gross without any deductions.
The SVU claimed in the court during hearing, Amit Lodha was posted as IG, Magadh Range (Gaya), and in pursuance of his agreement he had visited Mumbai in August, 2021 to meet the production team of web series and had received ₹12,372 on August 18 from Friday Story Teller LLP in his HDFC bank account. During his posting as IG, Magadh Range, again he had visited the shooting site at Kurka village near Daltanganj in Jharkhand on September 16, 2021 to monitor the production/creation of web series. The IG stayed with the production team there in the same hotel on September 17, 2021 and payment of ₹75,900 has been paid by the company. It is submitted that accumulation of disproportionate assets is a continuous offence and the above facts are enough to prove the jurisdiction of SVU, Bihar to register the FIR against the petitioner and others.
There is another allegation that the IG being a public servant had illegally entered a private trade with a production house and earned around ₹49.62 lakh by corrupt and illegal means. At this stage, this court is of the considered opinion that the contention of the SVU that the scrutiny of government records available in public domain reveals that the accused has acquired huge movable/immovable properties which is over and above and have been illicitly acquired, cannot be examined by this court by holding a prematured trial.
Vivek Shukla is a management graduate who has worked in corporate worked for 20 years and is now pursuing his passion — news.
