The state vigilance department has slapped a disproportionate wealth case against former MLA K.P.P. Baskar and his wife Uma for accumulating assets to the tune of Rs.4.72 crores. Baskar was the AIADMK MLA from Namakkal for two terms from 2011-2016 and 2016 to 2021.
A press note from the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) said that a case has been filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act and that simultaneous searches are being held in as many as 24 premises in Namakkal, Madurai and Tiruppur.
The FIR registered against KPP Baskar and his wife Uma says that the couple have acquired assets to the tune of Rs.4.72 crores which works out 315 per cent more than the known sources of income and the relevant period of office was from April 28, 2016 to March 15, 2021. As per the FIR registered against him on August 11, 2022, “Baskar was in possession of pecuniary resources and properties in his name and in the name of his family members to the tune of Rs 4,72,23,539/- which is disproportionate to the known sources of income.”
According to highly places sources in the AIADMK, the former Namakkal MLA is allegedly known to be one of the money bags of former chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS). Sources also say that several senior leaders of the AIADMK, particularly from the Salem, Erode and the Namakkal region are the trusted lieutenants and money bags of EPS. Baskar is the latest in the list to be brought under the DVAC scanner.
Since the DMK took over in May 2021, the DVAC had already registered cases against several former ministers. The DVAC sleuths have so far conducted searches at the residential and business premises linked to SP Velumani, who was the former local administration minister and the blue-eyed boy of EPS, Dr C. Vijayabhaskar, former health minister who was one of the pillars in ensuring that EPS taking over as the interim general secretary of the AIADMK, former electricity minister P. Thangamani, one of the lieutenants of Palaniswami, commercial taxes minister K.C. Veeramani, former transport minister M.R. Vijayabhaskar. Of all the four, Vijayabhaskar is already facing Income Tax and CBI cases, for his alleged involvement in the Gutka scam.
During the first week of August, the Supreme Court had set aside a Madras High Court order of October 2018 transferring the probe into a complaint of corruption and nepotism against Palaniswami to the CBI from the State’s Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC). In 2018 based on a complaint filed by the DMK, which was in the opposition then, the Madras High Court had transferred the probe to the CBI from the DVAC. Palaniswami was the chief minister then.
Not to be surprised, chief minister M.K. Stalin, during the election campaign in 2021, had promised probe against the corrupt ministers and MLAs of the then AIADMK government. The DMK, then, had also submitted a long list of scams under the erstwhile AIADMK government to the governor seeking probe. It had also filed complaints with the DVAC against EPS and OPS. Incidentally Tamil Nadu had witnessed high profile cases including the disproportionate wealth case against former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa and her close aide V.K. Sasikala, in which Jayalalithaa and others were convicted. At least 46 corruption cases were filed by the DMK during 1996, against the 1991-1996 AIADMK regime.
