MP: ED seeks information from EOW about Jabalpur diocese bishop held in cheating case

The Enforcement Directorate has sought certain information from the Economic Offence Wing of Madhya Pradesh police about the bishop of the Church of North India's Jabalpur Diocese, who has been arrested in a cheating case, an official said on Friday.

The EOW had arrested the bishop, P C Singh, on Monday. ''The ED has sought certain information from our office in connection with bishop P C Singh, who is in our custody in connection with a cheating case,'' EOW's Superintendent of Police Devendra Singh Rajput told PTI on Friday.

The official, however, refused to provide details of the information sought by the ED.

During the probe, the EOW has found that the bishop and his family have fixed deposits worth more than Rs 2 crore and 128 bank accounts.

Rajput said the EOW will produce the bishop in a court on Friday evening as his four-day custody of the investigating agency is ending.

The court rejected their bail application of Singh on Thursday, he said.

On Monday, a court remanded Singh to EOW for four days in the cheating case. Earlier that day, he was detained from Nagpur airport in Maharashtra and was later arrested, he said.

Last week, the EOW claimed to have recovered around Rs 1.60 crore in Indian and foreign currencies from the bishop's residence in Jabalpur during searches after the registration of the cheating case against Singh, who was then in Germany.

The EOW had last month registered the case against the bishop after a complaint alleged that he indulged in financial misconduct in running an educational society, of which he was the chairman, the official said.

A preliminary investigation had revealed that Rs 2.70 crore collected as students' fees by the society's various institutions between 2004-05 and 2011-12 were allegedly transferred to religious institutions, misused, and spent by the bishop for personal needs, an EOW official earlier said.

A case was then registered against Singh and former assistant registrar of Firms and Societies B S Solanki under Indian Penal Code Sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document or electronic record) and 120 B (punishment for criminal conspiracy), the official said. 

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)