Koda probe officer’s transfer halted

The Jharkhand High Court stayed the transfer of the director, Income-Tax (Investigation), Patna, Ujjawal Choudhary, who had been supervising the probe into the multi-billion rupee scam involving former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda and his associates, reports Bedanti Saran.

The Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday stayed the transfer of the director, Income-Tax (Investigation), Patna, Ujjawal Choudhary, who had been supervising the probe into the multi-billion rupee scam involving former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda and his associates.

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Choudhary was transferred to Central Circle, Patna, as Commissioner of Income Tax on February 19 during the ongoing investigation.

The stay will, however, be applicable for three weeks only. Choudhary was transferred with 29 others in his department in what was described by an official as a “routine” affair.

The division bench of Chief Justice Gyan Sudha Misra and Justice R.R. Prasad asked the lawyer of the IT department’s investigation wing to justify the administrative exigencies that made the transfer of Choudhary imperative, especially when he had taken charge of his office in Patna only seven months ago.

The bench also asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to submit a progress report on its probe into the money

laundering case involving Koda and his close aides by March 16. The ED has also undertaken its own probe into the scam.