The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered a Vigilance probe into the properties acquired by suspended senior IAS officer and Invest UP CEO Abhishek Prakash.

According to sources, the state appointment department has sent a letter to the Home Department, seeking a Vigilance probe into the assets of the suspended IAS.

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Abhishek Prakash was suspended by the government on Thursday on charges of demanding a bribe to accept the project of SAEL Solar Power Company.

IAS Abhishek Prakash has been accused of demanding a bribe to approve the project of SAEL Solar Power Company. In this connection, the Solar Company filed a case at the Gomtinagar police station in the capital, and a middleman, Nikant Jain, a resident of Gomtinagar, was arrested on Thursday.

According to the sources, IAS Abhishek Prakash had asked the company operators to contact Nikant Jain.

It has been reported that Nikant Jain had sought five per cent of the project’s total cost as a bribe to approve the project. The representative of the company, Vishwajit Das, had complained to Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh in this regard.

In his complaint, the company representative said his group had written to the Invest UP office to set up a plant related to solar cells and solar energy in UP. He also submitted an application online. Before the project was considered in the assessment committee meeting, a senior Invest UP official provided Jain’s number and asked him to contact him.

“Jain asked us to pay a 5 per cent commission and the entire amount in advance. The owner of my group had met Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath regarding the project, so I refused to give money,” the company representative said in his complaint.

In the letter to the Chief Secretary, he said that his owners might take the project to another state. Therefore, the project should be approved while action is taken against those involved.

Following a complaint to the Chief Secretary, a confidential investigation was conducted, which confirmed the allegations. The Chief Minister was then made aware of the entire episode and he immediately ordered the suspension of Invest UP CEO Abhishek Prakash, along with the filing of a case to investigate the matter.

Subsequently, the police identified and arrested the middleman, Nikant Jain.

Earlier, allegations were also made against Abhishek Prakash when he was the District Magistrate of Lucknow regarding a Rs 20 crore bribe in the land allotment for the Defence Corridor in the Nadarganj area.