IAS Officer Convicted in 25-Year-Old Disproportionate Assets Case

SRINAGAR: In a landmark verdict that concludes a legal battle spanning more than two decades, the Court of Additional Special Judge Anticorruption in Srinagar on Wednesday convicted retired IAS officer Habib ul Hassan Beigh for possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Beigh, now 80, was found guilty under Section 5(1)(e) of the Jammu and Kashmir Prevention of Corruption Act, 2006. The court ruled that he had amassed unexplained wealth worth Rs 28.77 lakh during his service career. The case was first registered in 1997, and the judgment comes after 25 years of prolonged litigation.

Judge F H Iqbal sentenced the former civil servant to one year of simple imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 15 lakh. The court, however, considered his advanced age and the extraordinary delay in the trial as mitigating factors, awarding the minimum sentence prescribed under the law, which ranges from one to seven years.

The case was prosecuted by the Vigilance Organisation Kashmir (VOK), which alleged that Beigh, during his tenure between August 1971 and May 1997, misused his official position to acquire significant movable and immovable assets. Beigh had served in key administrative roles, including Deputy Commissioner of Kargil and Secretary to the Government in the Social Welfare Department.

Initially, the VOK estimated his disproportionate assets at Rs 36.48 lakh, presenting a detailed inventory that included multiple residential properties, land holdings in Srinagar and Jammu, bank deposits, vehicles, and luxury items seized in 1997.

Following years of hearings, testimony from 38 prosecution witnesses, and scrutiny of documentary evidence, the court upheld much of the prosecution’s case but recalculated the figures. It recognised assets including a residential house at Chinar Colony, Barzulla (Rs 5.65 lakh), a half-share in a school building at Gogjibagh (Rs 23.99 lakh), a Maruti car (Rs 1.61 lakh), and seized cash and valuables, valuing them at Rs 39.05 lakh.

However, the court excluded two land parcels registered in his wife’s name—one in Ishber, Nishat (Rs 15,000) and another in Channi Bala, Jammu (Rs 1.20 lakh)—holding that the prosecution had failed to prove they were benami transactions. Beigh’s wife, herself a government employee, was not named as an accused.

The court also recalculated Beigh’s income during the check period at Rs 18.84 lakh (down from Rs 20.43 lakh) and reduced household expenditure estimates to Rs 8.56 lakh (from Rs 11.23 lakh), rejecting unproven claims such as spending on his daughter’s wedding. By applying the formula [Assets + Expenditure – Income], the court concluded that Beigh’s disproportionate assets amounted to Rs 28.77 lakh.

Beigh was acquitted of charges under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Men and Public Servants Declaration of Assets Act, 1983, relating to non-disclosure of his wife’s properties, due to lack of evidence. But the conviction under the Prevention of Corruption Act was upheld.

The court observed that the prosecution had established “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Beigh had accumulated assets “disproportionate to his known sources of income by a huge margin.”