Kolkata, Nov 23 : The arrest of Govind Agarwal by Kolkata Police’s detective department for cheating sparked off a fresh debate on Monday as West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar took to Twitter to criticise corruption and amassing of wealth by public servants.
“Reports of monstrous corruption and incredible amassing of wealth by public servants, their cronies and middlemen are worrisome.Systemic failure to dent such nefariously flourishing corruption industry, an open secret and talk of town, is a slur on governance,” Dhankhar tweeted.
Agarwal was arrested late on Saturday in connection with a 2017 FIR which implicated him and an IRS officer for cheating and corruption.A city court remanded Agarwal to judicial custody till November 24.
“Thorough probe and expose of mega corruption scam, channelisation of ill gotten wealth, its parking in assets in and out of country by ‘men in uniform’, their cronies called for.I’m committed to ensure exemplary consequences to these corrupt elements.
“These flourishing ‘dens of corruption’ must be busted so that democracy survives.Time for kingpins of corruption to be on the run and face wrath of law.It will be travesty of justice if corrupt can force honest ones to be on run.This would be death knell of democracy,” the Governor tweeted.
According to police sources, Agarwal, who was one of the accused in the FIR filed with the Hare Street police station, was arrested after a probe.
It was learnt that the accused IRS officer, then posted in the income tax department in Kolkata, had used Agarwal as a middleman to park funds in various companies.
Sources said that Agarwal used to function as a middleman in channelising ill-gotten money of many government officials, including senior IPS and IRS officials, and used to take care of third-party settlement related matters.
After police interrogation, it was further revealed that Agarwal was also involved with many influential people, including cattle-smuggling kingpin Enamul Haq and coal mafia Anup Majhi alias Lala, and he used to do financial audit for them.
Police sources said the arrested chartered accountant was involved in reinvesting the ill-gotten money of Eanmul and Majhi in many shell companies and used to channelise their back money into white income sources through a fraudulent mechanism.
The sleuths of Kolkata Police’s anti-fraud section also interrogated other employees of his chartered firm located in Kolkata’s Mango Lane.
Police sources said that Agarwal would be produced in Kolkata’s Bankshall Court again on Tuesday for the next hearing
.
