The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday said it has provisionally attached one immovable property worth Rs. 25.82 Lakhs of Congress MLA K Babu in connection with disproportionate assets case. 

“ED has provisionally attached one immovable property worth Rs. 25.82 Lakhs under the provisions of PMLA, 2002 belonging to K Babu, former Minister for Excise, Fisheries and Ports, Government of Kerala on 25/01/2024 for amassing of disproportionate assets during the period 01.07.2007 to 31.05.2016,” read ED’s post in platform X (formerly Twitter).

A provisional order for attaching the assets was issued on January 25 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the federal agency said in a statement. 

The agency said Babu, being a public servant from July 1, 2007 to May 31, 2016, acquired assets worth Rs 25.82 lakh which were "disproportionate" to his known sources of income.

This is an offence under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, it said.

Babu "derived/ obtained" the proceeds of crime in the form of movable and immovable properties to the tune of Rs 25.82 lakh, the ED said. 

The ED case stems from an August 2018 FIR of the Kerala Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) filed in Ernakulam district. Earlier, ED quizzed former minister K Babu over the case. The interrogation was based on the chargesheet filed by Vigilance.

Vigilance had filed a case of financial irregularity amounting to Rs 150 crore against Babu and his accomplices. Following this, ED also began to probe into the case. However, after the Vigilance probe, the financial fraud was reported only for Rs 25 lakh.

With PTI inputs