IMA case: B’luru DC Vijay Shankar arrested by SIT
Bengaluru: Deputy commissioner of Bengaluru District (Urban) B M Vijay Shankar was arrested by the Special Investigating Team (SIT), probing the multi-crore IMA Ponzi scam in Bengaluru on charges of taking a bribe of Rs 1.5 crore from Mansoor Khan.
Vijay Shankar is accused of taking the bribe to send a favourable report about the company’s functioning to the government. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had sought reports from the Karnataka government on investment companies, including I Monetary Advisory (IMA), about their functioning and the Ponzi schemes they have offered, SIT sources said.
DCP (Crime) S Girish, in a press release, said that during the course of SIT’s investigation into the IMA scam, the team stumbled on the deputy commissioner’s role as the final authority in submitting the report to the government.
Assistant commissioner of Bengaluru North L C Nagaraj was arrested last Friday by the SIT which claimed to have evidence that Nagaraj had taken Rs 4.5 crore to submit a favourable report on Khan’s IMA firm.
During Nagaraj’s custodial questioning and after corroboration and verification of his statements with the others involved, the needle of suspicion pointed towards Vijay Shankar, SIT sources said.
“The SIT sleuths then learnt Vijay Shankar had taken the bribe, hidden the facts and submitted a favourable report on IMA to the government. He was arrested on Monday after thorough questioning. He will be produced before a magistrate and the SIT will seek his police custody for further questioning and recovery of the bribe money,” a senior SIT official said.
Vijay Shankar took charge as the deputy commissioner of Bengaluru Urban district in July last year. He is the second senior government official and bureaucrat arrested after Nagaraj in connection with the IMA case.
The total number of arrests so far in the case by the SIT stands at 17, which includes seven directors of IMA, an auditor, five directors of the IMA Cooperative Society, nominated Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) corporator Syed Mujahid, village accountant Manjunath, apart from the the two senior officials.