DVAC probing civic member, wife over Rs 6.25 crore assets

CHENNAI: DVAC has started investigating a DA case against V Ayyappa, 65, former district panchayat member of Villupuram (now in Kallakurichi) for allegedly amassing assets worth over Rs 6.25 crore from the year 2011 to 2016 not proportionate to his known source of income through illegal means.

Besides Ayyappa, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) has also cited his wife Thailammmal as an accused in the case. She was vice chairman from the year 2006 to 2011 and from 2011 to 2016 in Thiyagadurgam panchayat union.

According to the DVAC records, Ayyappa, hailing from a poor family had gone to Bengaluru in mid-seventies to work as a labourer and later learnt pipeline laying work. He married in the year 1981 and in the year 1984 registered himself as a class 1 contractor in Bengaluru Water Board.

He managed to buy some flats from the earnings there and he returned to Thiyagadurgam after the year 2000. In the year 2001 he became a member of a political party and managed to get elected as member of ward 45 in the district panchayat in the year 2011.

During that time, he and his wife acquired movable and immovable assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

In the year 2011, his asset value stood at Rs 93.5 lakh and by the end of five years, value of his and wife's assets stood at Rs 7.25 crore. DVAC, after considering his genuine income and expenditure along with likely savings, has pegged his disproportionate assets at Rs 6.25 crore which is 1926 per cent excess than his genuine income.