Rs 4.05 crore fine for Food Corporation of India assistant who amassed illicit wealth

NEW DELHI: A special CBI court in Bhopal on Wednesday slapped a fine of Rs 4.05 crore on a Food Corporation of India (FCI) official and sentenced him to five years of rigorous imprisonment in a corruption case, officials said.

Kishore Meena was posted as an assistant in the Divisional Office of FCI Bhopal when he was booked for seeking a bribe on June 3, 2021.

When the CBI had conducted raids on his residence, it found more than Rs 3.01 crore in cash, along with gold jewellery, for which he could not provide a satisfactory explanation.

It is alleged that he had managed to accumulate huge illicit wealth within a span of five years from December 2, 2016, to May 29, 2021, (when the raids took place), they said.

The agency's probe showed that the family assets of Meena shot up from Rs 3.52 lakh in 2016 to Rs 4.32 crore in 2021, with a total income of just a little over Rs 45 lakh during the period.

The CBI concluded that out of the total assets confiscated and recorded during the searches, over Rs 4.06 crore was tainted, which comes to 900 per cent over his known sources of income.

"Being a public servant governed by FCI (Staff) Regulations, he was supposed to report the transactions regarding the acquisition of assets made by him or his family members to the department and also the income earned by him to the Income Tax Department as applicable to him," a CBI spokesperson said.

After the completion of the investigation, the CBI filed a charge sheet against him on January 17, 2022.

"The special judge for CBI cases in Bhopal on October 23, 2024, sentenced Kishore Meena, then Assistant Grade-1 of Divisional Office (DO) of FCI, Bhopal (MP), to five years' rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 4,05,07,259 in a case related to disproportionate assets. The court also ordered the confiscation of the cash amount of Rs 3,96,99,140, which was recovered from the accused during the investigation," he said.