Bengaluru: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday arrested former minister and Congress MLA B Nagendra in connection with the multi-crore scam in the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation.
A highly placed source associated with the ED confirmed to DH on Friday night that arrest procedures had been initiated against the Ballari Rural legislator. Officials are preparing to produce him before the special court for ED cases in Bengaluru, the source added.
The central agency took the legislator into its custody at the end of an action-packed day. In the morning, ED officials hauled him to its office in Shanthinagar, where they questioned him until late evening before deciding to formally arrest him.
Nagendra resigned as the scheduled tribes welfare minister in the state cabinet on June 6 following allegations that Rs 89.7 crore was illegally transferred from the corporation's bank account to several bank accounts in Hyderabad.
Several staff members of the Union Bank of India's MG Road branch, where the corporation has its account, were also believed to be involved.
The scam surfaced after the corporation's accounts superintendent, P Chandrashekhar, died by suicide in Shivamogga on May 26. He left behind a death note, naming some corporation officials and the "minister".
The scam has put the Congress government on the backfoot and given the opposition BJP-JD(S) alliance ammunition to target the ruling dispensation.
While the Congress government formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) opened a case based on a complaint from the Union Bank of India.
Separately, the ED launched a money-laundering investigation. It also received two separate complaints.
On July 10, the ED commenced simultaneous raids at over 15 places across Karnataka. Officials searched the homes and other premises of Nagendra and his close aides. Premises linked to the corporation's chairman and Raichur Rural MLA Basanagouda Daddal and his close aides, as well as the corporation's head office in Bengaluru's Vasanthnagar, were also searched.
As the searches were underway for two days straight, both MLAs were put under house arrest.
While ED officials scrutinised various documents, it's not clear they had confiscated anything.
The ED briefly detained Nagendra's close aide Harish and Daddal's former personal assistant Pampanna.
In a separate development, the SIT questioned Daddal for over eight hours on Friday.