The Income Tax department on Friday sensationally revealed how a government engineer with Noida Authority had amassed 25 properties, owned five cars including one Jaguar and had two wives. While one wife was in Noida, his second wife was in neighbouring Ghaziabad.

59-year-old Chaudhary Brijpal Singh, who worked in Noida Authority as an Assistant Project Engineer, had six children from both wives, three children (two boys and a girl each) from each wife. A report by Hindustan Times said that both his sets of children had the same names primarily to ensure that Singh could carry out property transactions in their names without any problems. All six of his children are adults.

Amrinder Kumar, principal director of the IT department’s investigation wing, was quoted by Hindustan Times as saying, “During the investigation, we found that Singh owns 25 properties registered in the names of his family members. He was shocked when we found out about his two wives and children. He kept the same names for his children from both wives to make the property buying and selling procedure suspicion free.”

Singh worked reporting to project engineer NK Bharadwaj and was due to retire in 2019. There are also reports that his first wife in Noida may have become suspicious about his second wife in Ghaziabad since he frequently visited the place.

Kumar added, “We will start seizing his properties once our investigation is over. Apart from these 25 properties, we have found documents of properties which have already been purchased and sold. He hasn’t declared any of those properties.”

Property business in and around Noida has been on upward trend in the recent years. This made Noida Authority one of the richest government bodies in India since it was responsible for giving approval to new real estate projects, whose value ran in hundreds of crores of rupees.

The IT department’s revelations on Singh brought back the memory of Yadav Singh, who was Engineer-in-Chief of Noida Authority, Greater Noida Authority and Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority. In November 2014, the IT department had conducted several raids that showed how Yadav Singh owned huge property disproportionate to his known sources of income.

In July 2015, the Allahabad High Court had directed the CBI to investigate the case stating that the allegations were most serious. Two years later, the Supreme Court directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to respond to the bail plea of Yadav Singh who had, by then, been chargesheeted in connection with a money laundering case.