CBI: Error in corruption case leads to acquittal over misclassified gift | News from Chennai

Chennai: A simple, sentimental gift to a 10-year-old boy led to the collapse of a high-quality Corruption case. The CBI a family heirloom was falsely classified as a financial investment and the fees inflated, which, when discovered, eventually led to acquittal his parents.
The case, which spanned a decade, involved KSSVP Murthy Raju, a deputy chief engineer of the railways, and his wife K Pushpavalli. In 2008, the CBI launched an investigation and accused the couple of possessing disproportionate assets 54.66 lakh in total. The allegations were serious. The couple had allegedly amassed wealth far beyond their known sources of income.
The CBI investigation examined every aspect of the couple's finances, including salary slips, property deeds, bank accounts and personal gifts. At the heart of the investigation was a $92,900 property gifted to their then 10-year-old son, Sushanth Varma, by a relative, G Nalini Mohan Raju.
This property was not a typical financial acquisition, but a sentimental family heirloom meant to secure the boy's future. However, the investigating agency considered this a significant financial transaction and added it to the list of assets the couple allegedly could not account for.
This error inflated the couple's supposed wealth, which contributed to the corruption charges against them. The inclusion of this property as a disproportionate asset tipped the scales in the investigation and made the case appear stronger than it was. The agency made a mistake by overvaluing assets such as a gold chain worth Rs 103,500 and miscalculating cash and investments such as Rs 640,000 in a financial firm and Rs 219,950 in a locker. The CBI officials also failed to verify the records properly and included gold jewelry and legitimate investments worth Rs 35,500 as disproportionate assets.
The defence exposed these errors and proved that the property gifted to Sushanth was a non-financial transfer which was wrongly classified as disproportionate assets. S. Ezhil Velavan, Additional Special Judge for CBI cases in Chennai, found serious errors in the investigation and ruled that the property was wrongly classified and that the CBI failed to prove that the couple's assets exceeded their income. As a result, the court acquitted them of all charges.

We have also recently published the following articles