Odisha: ED Attaches Rs 1.52 Cr ‘Disproportionate’ Assets Of Junior Clerk-Turned-Politician Anam Naik

Bhubaneswar: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached assets worth Rs 1.52 crore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, in connection with a case registered against former Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MLA Anam Naik.

A former junior clerk and MLA from Bhawanipatna constituency in Odisha, Naik was arrested in January 2020 by the Odisha Vigilance on charges of amassing disproportionate assets to his known sources of income.

The ED had then initiated an investigation on the basis of an FIR registered against him at Koraput police station under Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(b) of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act.

The financial investigation agency later found that Naik had invested his ill-gotten wealth, over and above his known sources of income, in acquiring various properties and banks in his name and that of his family members.

Notably, the Vigilance sleuths had unearthed assets worth over Rs. 3.42 crore, including a triple-storied building, a duplex lodge with Foreign Liquor shop, two numbers of market complexes, two numbers of single-storied buildings and a garage, six numbers of plots, a tractor, two numbers of four-wheelers, three numbers of two-wheelers, deposits in different banks amounting over 49 lakhs, investment in insurance policies, gold ornaments, and household articles, during the raid on Naik.

Of over Rs 3.42 crore, more than Rs 1.5 crore was disproportionate to his known sources of income, the Odisha Vigilance had then claimed.

Naik had joined government service as a junior clerk in January 1985 and was posted at the Revenue Department. He worked in different offices in Kalahandi till March 30, 2004, before resigning from government service and entering politics. He was the MLA of the Bhawanipatna Assembly segment from 2014  to 2019.

He was dined a ticket by the party in the last general elections after a sting operation on him over a mining lease issue.

Naik had then attributed the Vigilance raid to political and business rivalry.