CHENNAI: A simple, sentimental gift to a 10-year-old boy led to the collapse of a high-value

corruption case

against a

railway engineer

. The

CBI

misclassified this family hand-me-down property as a financial asset, inflating charges and leading to the eventual acquittal of his parents.
Judge S Ezhil Velavan found critical mistakes in the investigation against KSSVP Murthy Raju and his wife K Pushpavalli, ruling the property was wrongly included and that the CBI failed to prove the couple’s assets exceeded their income.

The court then acquitted the couple of all charges.
The case against Raju, a deputy chief engineer in the railways, and Pushpavalli spanned over a decade. The CBI accused them of possessing

disproportionate assets

totalling Rs 54.6 lakh.
The CBI’s investigation scrutinised every aspect of the couple’s finances, including salary slips, property deeds, bank accounts, and personal gifts.

Central to this investigation was a Rs 92,900

property gift

given to their son Sushanth, when he was 10 years old, by a relative, G Nalini Mohan Raju.
This property was not a typical financial acquisition, but a sentimental family hand-me-down intended to secure the boy’s future. However, the CBI mistakenly treated this gift as a significant

financial transaction

, adding it to the list of assets the couple allegedly could not explain.

This mistake inflated the family’s perceived wealth, contributing to the corruption charges against them. The inclusion of this property as a disproportionate asset tipped the scales in the CBI’s investigation, making the case appear stronger than it was.
Further, the CBI erred by overvaluing assets like a Rs 1-lakh gold necklace and miscalculating cash and investments, such as Rs 6.4 lakh in a finance firm and Rs 2.2 lakh in a locker. They also failed to properly review documentation, wrongfully including Rs 35,500 in gold jewellery and legitimate investments as disproportionate assets.
The defence exposed these errors, proving the property gifted to Sushanth was a non-financial transfer wrongly included as a disproportionate asset.