Lucknow, (Samajweekly) The problems of former Samajwadi Party Minister, Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, are mounting. After the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), it is now the state Vigilance Department that has filed an FIR against him in a disproportionate assets case.
The case has been registered at the Lucknow Sector police station of Vigilance.
Vigilance had earlier conducted an open investigation into the matter, which revealed assets worth more than six times Prajapati’s income. Vigilance then sent an inquiry report to the state government seeking permission to register an FIR in the case.
After getting the green signal from the government, Vigilance has started investigating cases by registering disproportionate assets.
According to sources, the period during which Vigilance conducted an open investigation of disproportionate assets revealed that Prajapati’s income was around Rs 50 lakh and his assets were worth Rs 3.5 crore.
Investigations by the Vigilance Department have revealed about 21 benami properties of Prajapati.
The former minister had bought agricultural land worth crores of rupees in Amethi, Sultanpur, Pratapgarh and other places in the name of his family and other close ones.
Apart from this, his benami properties also include flats and residential plots.
Former Minister Gayatri Prajapati is in jail since March 2017 in connection with a rape case.
Prajapati is also named in the mining scam which took place during the SP regime.
In the mining scam, the CBI had also registered a case against the former minister, after which the ED based the CBI FIR in August 2019 against five IAS officers, including the former Ministers Gayatri Prasad and B. Chandrakala under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
