Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta Police arrested a former MP Transport Department Constable outside the Bhopal Court premises on Tuesday, minutes before he was to appear in the court to surrender.
The cops took Saurabh Sharma to the Lokayukta office for interrogation.
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Sharma’s lawyer Rakesh Parashar said his client was going to appear before the court at 11AM on Tuesday, a day after he submitted a surrender application before the Lokayukta Special Judge R P Mishra. But the Lokayukta Police arrested him before he could surrender.
Facing allegations of amassing disproportionate assets, cash and valuables worth crores of rupees, Saurabh Sharma had filed a surrender application in the Special Lokayukta Court at Bhopal on Monday, after being untraceable for 41 days.
Sharma had come to the court of Lokayukta Special Judge R P Mishra, and the judge asked Sharma to appear in the court at 11 AM on Tuesday.
Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta Director General Jaideep Prasad said on Tuesday that Saurabh Sharma has been arrested and brought to the Lokayukta office for interrogation.
After Lokayukta police raided addresses linked to Saurabh Sharma on December 18 and 19, 2024, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), and Income Tax Department too raided and lodged parallel investigations. Lokayukta teams were after him for a long time amid speculation that he had escaped to some foreign land.
The Lokayukta police had claimed to have unearthed and seized disproportionate assets of Rs 7.98 crore, including Rs 2.87 crore in cash and 234 kilograms of silver, during raids at Sharma’s places.
Sharma’s father RK Sharma was a government doctor and died in 2015.
After that, Saurabh got appointed as a constable in the state transport department on compassionate grounds in 2015 and took voluntary retirement in 2023.
Subsequently, he entered into the real estate business.
In a separate action on December 19, 2024, the I-T department seized more than Rs 10 crore in cash and 52 kg of gold from a car on the outskirts of Bhopal.
The car owner was Chetan Singh Gaud, a close associate of Saurabh Sharma. As a result it is being surmised that the gold and cash in the car could also be connected to Saurabh Sharma. However, that has not yet been proven.
