The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday arrested Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal in a money-laundering case. Singhal had appeared before the ED for the second consecutive day in connection with a money-laundering probe linked to alleged embezzlement of MGNREGA funds in Khunti and other charges.
The IAS officer had arrived at the agency's regional office in Hinoo area around 10:40 am, news agency PTI reported.
The agency had recorded the statement of the officer under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The officer was present for about nine hours at its office on Tuesday.
Who is IAS officer Pooja Singhal and what's the case?
1. Singhal is a 2000-batch IAS officer and was posted as the deputy commissioner in the Khunti district earlier before her present posting.
2. Singhal is also the managing director of Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation Limited.
3. On May 6, the ED had conducted raids against Singhal, her businessman husband Abhishek Jha and others in Jharkhand and a few other locations.
4. Chartered accountant Suman Kumar was arrested in this case on May 7.
{{/usCountry}}4. Chartered accountant Suman Kumar was arrested in this case on May 7.
{{/usCountry}}5. The ED has claimed that Singhal and Jha received cash deposits to the tune of ₹1.43 crore between 2008 and 2011, the same period when alleged embezzlement of MGNREGA funds took place in Khunti district.
6. Over ₹19 crore was recovered during raids at 18 premises in Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and other places in the case recently. Of this, ₹17.49 crore was found on the premises of Kumar alone.
7. The federal agency has also told a special PMLA (prevention of money laundering act) court in Ranchi that the IAS officer allegedly transferred ₹16.57 lakh from her “personal account” to those controlled or owned by her CA. Kumar is currently being interrogated for his links with certain other persons in the state.
8. Senior advocate of Jharkhand High Court Rajeev Kumar submitted a complaint against her to the ED in February 2022.
9. The ED probe pertains to a money laundering case in which former junior engineer in the Jharkhand government, Ram Binod Prasad Sinha, was arrested by the agency on June 17, 2020, from West Bengal after he was booked by the agency under the PMLA in 2012 after studying the FIRs of the state vigilance bureau against him.
10. Sinha told ED that he paid 5 per cent commission (out of the defrauded funds) to the district administration, according to the ED note. During the period, ED said various charges of irregularities were made against Singhal while she served as the deputy commissioner/district magistrate of Chatra, Khunti and Palamu between 2007 and 2013.