E-Paper
Jharkhand mining secretary, husband received ₹1.43 crore: ED
Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal and her husband Abhishek Jha received cash deposits to the tune of ₹1.43 crore between 2008 and 2011.
Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal and her husband Abhishek Jha received cash deposits to the tune of ₹1.43 crore between 2008 and 2011, the same period when alleged embezzlement of MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) funds took place in Khunti district, the Enforcement Directorate said.
The central agency made the claim while producing Singhal’s Chartered Accountant (CA) Suman Kumar, arrested on Saturday in the money laundering probe, in a Ranchi court.
Over ₹19 crore was recovered during raids at 18 premises in Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and other places in the case on Friday. Of this, ₹17.49 crore was found at the premises of Kumar alone.
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. Singhal, a 2000-batch IAS officer, will soon be called for questioning, people familiar with the development said, requesting anonymity.
Seeking Kumar’s custody, the agency in its remand note, seen by HT, said the CA was withholding information regarding the source of the cash seized from his house and was not disclosing the “actual owner” of the cash.
The agency claimed in the court document that Singhal used funds that were deposited in cash in her banks accounts during 2007-2013, to purchase life insurance policies.
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.
Sinha was booked by the vigilance bureau under criminal sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) pertaining to cheating and corruption for allegedly defrauding public money and investing it in his own name as well as in the name of his family members while working as junior engineer from April 1, 2008 to March 21, 2011.
The said money was earmarked for the execution of government projects under MNREGA in Khunti district, the agency had earlier said.
Sinha told ED that he paid 5% 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.
“The account statements of Pooja Singhal were called from various banks and financial institutions. The accounts of Pooja Singhal and her husband Abhishek Jha are having huge cash deposits to the tune of ₹1.43 crore during the same crime period,” claimed ED.
She served as the DC (deputy commissioner) of Khunti district between February 16, 2009 and July 19, 2010, the alleged crime period for which Sinha is being probed.
It added that the cash deposited in different financial years were “over and above” the salary of Singhal.
The IAS officer, ED said, purchased 13 policies and paid premium of ₹80.81 lakh between 2005-06 and 2012-13 and later “closed them (policies) pre-maturely and received closure amount of ₹84.64 lakh”. The agency said out of this amount, Singhal “transferred” ₹3.96 lakh from her account to Kumar’s in 2015.
It further claimed that another ₹6.39 lakh from the said closure funds was transferred in 2016 to the account of Santosh Crusher Metal Works, a partnership firm incorporated by Kumar and where the CA’s father is a partner. The agency claimed a third amount of ₹6.22 lakh was transferred by her in 2017 to a company called Radhey Shyam Explosives Pvt. Ltd.
“All three accounts were related to Suman Kumar. The total amount transferred from her (Singhal’s) personal account to these accounts is ₹16.57 lakh,” ED told the court.
The agency is also looking at the business transactions and other finances of a multi-specialty hospital based in Ranchi allegedly managed by Singhal’s husband.
ED officials had earlier said they seized a number of incriminating documents that indicate links of political and higher bureaucracy with alleged illegal mining activities in the state.
