IAS officer refutes allegations of disproportionate assets

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IAS officer Manoj Agarwal, who has been charged by the CBI for amassing assets disproportionate to his known source of income, has refuted the allegations saying all the assets have been duly mentioned in Income Tax returns and the case was registered in a "malafide manner".
In a statement to PTI, Agarwal, a 1990-batch officer from West Bengal cadre, said, "my wife is an independent Income Tax (I-T) assessee since 10 years prior to our marriage and was owning properties well prior to her marriage with me".
He said all the movable and immovable assets have been disclosed by her and duly accepted by the I-T department.

"All my movable and immovable assets have been duly disclosed to and accepted by the Government. A complaint with similar allegations had been closed by CVC and DOPT after proper enquiry prior to the registration of case," he said in the statement.
Aggarwal claimed the case against him was registered in a "malafide manner" on December 15, 2009, soon after he was promoted as Joint Secretary, without any Preliminary Enquiry on oral source information.
The officer, who has been made accused along with his wife Rooma and father-in-law by the investigating agency in the charge sheet filed yesterday, said a criminal writ petition for quashing of the FIR has been filed by him in the Delhi High Court, which has issued notices to CBI and DOPT.

"The next date of hearing in the Delhi High Court is on November 18. The charge sheet has been filed in a biased and hasty manner even though the matter is subjudice," he said.
The charge sheet against Agarwal, now posted as Secretary of the North Bengal Development Department, was filed at Patiala House Court here after a nearly three-year long probe into his assets.
"The CBI probe revealed that (Agarwal) was in possession of disproportionate assets to the tune of approximately Rs 1.46 crore during the period between August 20, 1990, to June 30, 2008," the investigative agency had said in a statement.