Now, ED files DA case against former minister Prajapati

LUCKNOW : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a disproportionate assets (DA) case against former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, said joint director of ED (Lucknow region) on Friday.

Earlier, in November, the UP Vigilance Wing had registered a case of disproportionate assets (DA) against him after finding substantial evidences about his alleged ‘benami’ properties.

As for the new case, ED filed it on the basis of findings that surfaced during searches conducted at seven locations of the former minister, his family members as well as aides in Lucknow, Kanpur and Amethi on December 30, 2020.

“The recovery of over 100 documents and registries of properties in Lucknow, Kanpur, Amethi, Sitapur and other places provided the ground to register the disproportionate assets case against the former minister,” a senior Enforcement Directorate official said.

“The review of documents suggested that the former minister and his family members earned and created assets much more than their legal earnings,” the official added.

The documents included the allotment letters of four villas in Mumbai, valued at ₹2.5 crore each, 23 properties costing between ₹3 lakh and 36 lakh and sale deeds in the names of unknown persons and these were suspected to be benami properties of the former minister, the official said.

He also said the searches had revealed that the former minister’s two sons had sold off many properties for personal gains and to influence key witnesses in the gang rape case against him.

The searches at the seven locations in December were conducted in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case registered against Prajapati on January 7, 2019 on the basis of an FIR registered by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in an alleged multi-crore illegal mining scam in the state between 2012 and 2016. Prajapati was a minister in the previous Samajwadi Party government.

He is in judicial custody since March 2017 after being arrested for the alleged rape of a woman and the alleged attempted rape of her minor daughter.