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ED summons eight IPS officers in Bengal coal smuggling scam
The IPS officers have been summoned to the national Capital in phases after August 15, said ED officials.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned eight Indian Police Service (IPS) officers posted in West Bengal to New Delhi for questioning in the coal smuggling case, officials familiar with the development said on Thursday.
The IPS officers have been summoned to the national Capital in phases after August 15, said ED officials. They are Gyanwant Singh, Koteswara Rao, S Selvamurugan, Shyam Singh, Rajiv Mishra, Sukesh Kumar Jain, Bhaskar Mukherjee and Tathagata Basu.
ED has claimed that the IPS officers played crucial roles in the coal smuggling case. “These officers were posted in areas where the smuggling happened and there is evidence that they benefited from it,” an ED official said, requesting anonymity.
ED had summoned seven of these eight officers last year as well.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) started the probe in the coal smuggling case and ED initiated a parallel investigation.
CBI registered the case in November 2020. It is alleged that illegally mined coal, worth several thousand crores of rupees, has been sold in the black market over several years by a racket operating in the western parts of West Bengal where the Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) runs several mines. CBI had questioned three of these eight officers in 2021.
According to CBI, some Bengal police officers were also suspects in the case and therefore, their questioning is necessary.
HT could not contact the eight officers for a comment.
One of the officers Gyanwant Singh is the additional director general of the West Bengal criminal investigation department (CID), which is also conducting a parallel probe into the coal smuggling case.
On July 19, CBI filed its first charge sheet in the case against 41 people, including Anup Majhi, alias Lala, the alleged kingpin of the operation, and eight officers of the ECL who were arrested from Kolkata between July 13 and 15.
“The investigation is continuing,” CBI had told the special court at Asansol in West Burdwan district where the charge sheet was filed.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and his wife Rujira have also been questioned by the federal agencies in connection with the case.
