BREAKING: ED Grills Former Minister G Nagendra in Karnataka Treasury Loot Case

Bengaluru: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday morning picked up former Karnataka minister and Congress MLA G Nagendra for questioning in link with state treasury loot case. Nagendra was being grilled by the ED at their office in Shantinagar in Bengaluru.

He was being quizzed as a part of investigations into the multi-crore scam in the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation, when Nagendra was the state schedule tribes welfare minister. He had resigned in June.

This comes in the backdrop of both his personal assistant Harish as well as his personal secretary Devendrapa who were questioned in font of Nagendra for over 18 hours on Thursday. They were taken in for questioning late night by the ED officials.

Nagendra was picked up because of the statements given by his PA Harish whose role has been mentioned by the SIT in the remand copy.

The CBI is also raising the heat on the bank officials. There has been no development on the side of Basanagouda Daddal, the chairman of the Valmiki Development Corporation and a Congress MLA. Daddal sill remains at large. The questions that now surrounds Nagendra are : whether he was a part of deal which took place at a private hotel; was Rs 25 crore lakh handed in his presence from his PA Harish to the former MD of the corporation, Padmanabh; how did he came in contact with Satyanarayan Verma ad what is the role of Verma in connection with the scam. 

Verma, stated to be the mastermind of the scam, has converted cash into gold which was later seized by Hyderabad. If all dots are connected, it points out that money doubling might also be involved. The role of Hawala operator is also getting clear in the SIT probe.

The CBI is parallelly being investigated by the CBI and an SIT. 

What is Valmiki Corporation Scam?

The scams involves illegal transfer of money from Valmiki Corporation to various bank accounts.  Many officials of Union bank of India are also said to be involved in the scam and they are under the radar. 

It was learnt that Rs 89 crore was taken out from State-run Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation's fund and transferred to a private bank (RBL) in Hyderabad in Jubilee Hills area. The money was further transferred from RBL Bank to another bank (First Credit Cooperative society). The funds were then transfered to hundreds of benami accounts. During the probe, it was revealed that Satyanaryan Verma had collected all the money sent to these benami accounts and converted it into gold.