Reaping 'yield' from barren farm lands engineer in soup

He was raided in DA case, fabricated proof for agricultural income

 A government chief engineer has claimed to have reaped huge agricultural profit of Rs 47 lakh, from barren lands.

N Laxman Rao Peshve - a former chief engineer of PWD - who has been chargesheeted by the Lokayukta police for possessing Disproportionate Assets (DA) worth Rs 9.34 crore, has claimed that he has earned Rs 47 lakh by cultivating around five acres.

The police have also chargesheeted Peshve’s wife Kanchana L Rao for helping her husband in legalising ill-gotten money.

This is the first time a public servant’s wife has been chargesheeted by the Lokayukta police in a DA case.

Peshve is now posted as the chief engineer of the Bagalkot Town Development Authority. He joined PWD as assistant executive engineer in 1992 and was managing director of Karnataka Neeravari Nigama when he was raided on June 22, 2012 for possessing DA. During the course of investigation, Peshve submitted several documents as proof of income.

The Lokayukta police team, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police D Phalakshaiah, found that most of the documents Peshve submitted were either forged or fabricated. In his attempts to fabricate returns filed before the Income Tax department, Peshve had inserted agricultural income. A few of the documents submitted by Peshve were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory and the forgery was proved.  

“In his reply, Peshve submitted that he has got agricultural income from lands in Mootigundi village (21 guntas) and Goolur village (four acres and 23 guntas) in Tumakuru district.

He had produced 210 bills for agricultural income of Rs 47.34 lakh. The officials visited these lands and found that they were barren lands and no crop was grown there in the last 10-15 years.

 This led us to the people who issued bills. The people who issued them were retail vendors of vegetables and banana in Madhugiri. The probe revealed that apart from the bills issued to Peshve, these retailers have not issued bills to anyone else in the past,” a senior police official said.

One more retail vendor in Ramanagar had issued bills worth lakhs of rupees to Peshve for the vegetables grown on his barren lands.

The Lokayukta police have submitted the charge sheet under Sections 13(1)(e) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Sections 109, 177, 193, 465, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code.

Fertile minds gone futile

The Peshve couple have claimed that they earned an annual income of Rs 1.8 lakh from a house they had rented out. However,  investigation revealed that they themselves had been staying in the house since long. Police unearthed 24 different properties in Bengaluru, Tumakuru, Mysuru, Mangaluru and Hyderabad. Of these, 23 assets are in the name of Peshve’s wife.

“Peshve had travelled abroad seven times and on a few occasions he had not even informed the government. We had to charge sheet his wife since most of the assets were in her name and she had fabricated the income tax returns filed and had falsely included agricultural income. She has invested ill-gotten money in real estate, apartments, commercial complexes and sites, an official said.