The CBI has booked former Allahabad High Court judge S N Shukla, who is being probed for allegedly favouring a medical college owner, in a fresh case of amassing disproportionate assets worth over Rs 2.54 crore in the name of family members, officials said Wednesday.
The CBI had carried out searches after it booked Shukla, then a judge of the Lucknow bench of the High Court, and others in December 2019 under Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The CBI lodged second case against Justice Shukla after it found that the ex-judge had acquired assets and conducted expenditure worth Rs 4.07 crore from April 1, 2014 to December 6, 2019. However, his income from all the known sources of income in the same period was only Rs 1.53 crore.
Following this, CBI lodged an FIR under the charges of the Prevention of Corruption Act, against Shukla, his second wife Suchita Tiwari and one Saideen Tiwari, the ex-judge’s brother-in-law, along with other unidentified persons.
The CBI said that first searches were conducted in the premises of the former judge and his second wife in the golf city area of Lucknow, and at the residence of his brother-in-law in Amethi.
During the investigation of the case, mobile phone data extraction of SN Shukla revealed his association with Suchita Tiwari. It surfaced that the former justice also acquired assets in the name of Saideen.
“Land deals came under the scanner. A land purchased in 2012 for Rs 3.67 lakh, was sold in 2014 for Rs 30 lakh. Similarly, another land purchased in 2013 for Rs 3.15 lakh was sold in 2017 for Rs 70 lakh.
Both these lands were sold to Shine City Infra projects,” the CBI said. The CBI said that according to the evidence gathered, it surfaced that SN Shukla sent messages to Himanshu of Shine City to make payments several times. Himanshu Kumar sent Rs 80 lakh to SN Shukla in the name of Shiv Shakti Dham Trust, controlled by former Justice Shukla.
On the other hand, Saideen, who works in a government office, did not file an income tax return and did not intimate about it to his office.
The retired judge was earlier booked by CBI for allegedly favouring a private medical college in 2019.
During the probe, the agency claimed it found property documents and other assets, the officials said. The CBI found it from its sources that Shukla allegedly amassed assets worth over Rs 2.54 crore in the name of family members during 2014-19 and could not give a satisfactory explanation on the source of income, they said.
The agency said the former judge “intentionally enriched himself illicitly and acquired assets by corrupt and illegal means in the name of Suchita Tiwari with whom he is residing”, the CBI FIR alleged.
The agency said in the FIR that Tiwari claimed to be the “second wife” of Justice Shukla.
