The Karnataka government on Wednesday informed the High Court that a notification has been issued to attach the properties of former minister R Roshan Baig in connection with his alleged involvement in the scam of I Monetary Advisory (IMA) group of companies. The state government attached around 20 immovable and movable assets in connection with the IMA scam. The government attached the Rs 52 crore paid by IMA to 100 depositors who had received amounts in excess of their principal deposit amounts, The Hindu reported.
The assets mentioned by the government order were declared by Roshan Baig in his election affidavit in April 2018. Their declared worth is Rs 17 crore. This includes a 1/3 share in a commercial building spread over 30,000 square feet on Hosur Road, another commercial building in Residency Road worth Rs 76 lakh, a residential property on Sanders Road, another residential property on Cleveland Road worth Rs 3.6 crore, a site in HBR Layout, Fraser Town and Cleveland Road, Times of India reported.
The High Court bench hearing the case also asked the state government to submit its response to a letter by Harsh Gupta, a senior IAS officer, about the attachment of VK Obaidullah Government School building, for which the IMA Group allegedly received a Rs 10 crore contribution. The IMA's charitable arm had spent money for the redevelopment and maintenance of the school located in Shivajinagar. The other assets included by the government were deposits in Roshan Baig's name in various banks in Bengaluru as well as jewellery gold ornaments.
Roshan Baig was embroiled in the IMA scam in 2019 after he was accused of helping Mohammed Mansoor Khan, the prime accused and owner of IMA, of fleeing the country when the scam broke out. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probed Roshan Baig's links to the accused after he alleged in a video that Roshan Baig had extorted money from him.
Roshan Baig is a seven-time MLA from Shivajinagar and was considered an important leader in the Congress in Bengaluru before the findings of the IMA scam and his unceremonious exit. He was one of the 17 MLAs who left the JD(S)-Congress coalition that paved the way for the collapse of the HDK Kumaraswamy-led Karnataka government. But unlike most of the others, he was not inducted by the BJP.