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Jharkhand high court directs ED to probe MNREGA ‘scam’ in West Singhbhum
“The court has directed the ED to probe whether any case of money laundering is made out into the cases being probed by the ACB. The state has been directed to provide a copy of the FIRs to the federal agency, which would submit a report before October 31. The court would take a further call on it accordingly,” a lawyer associated with the case said on Wednesday.
The Jharkhand high court has directed the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) to conduct a preliminary inquiry in the alleged MNREGA scam in West Singhbhum district, which was being investigated by the state’s anti-corruption bureau (ACB), people aware of the development said on Wednesday.
Hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) by one Matlub Alam, the division bench of chief justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra and justice Aanand Sen directed the federal agency on Tuesday to submit a report in before October 31.
The alleged scam occurred between 2008 to 2011 in West Singhbum district. The Jharkhand police had registered 14 cases related to the scam which were transferred to the ACB in 2015. The petitioner had filed the PIL in 2021 seeking probe by an independent agency and had made both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the ED respondents in the case.
“The court has directed the ED to probe whether any case of money laundering is made out into the cases being probed by the ACB. The state has been directed to provide a copy of the FIRs to the federal agency, which would submit a report before October 31. The court would take a further call on it accordingly,” a lawyer associated with the case said on Wednesday.
Petitioner’s counsel Rajiv Kumar said they have pleaded for independent probe in these cases as they have been pending at different stage of investigation for a decade now.
The ED is already probing another MNREGA scam case in Khunti district. The agency had, on May 11, 2022, arrested IAS Pooja Singhal on charges of money laundering in connection with the scam. The alleged scam happened when Singhal was deputy commissioner of Khunti between 2009-10.
