Former principal secy to J'khand CM seeks time to appear before ED in money laundering case

Senior IAS officer Rajeev Arun Ekka has sought time after March 24 to appear before the Enforcement Directorate in view of the ongoing budget session of the Jharkhand Assembly, official sources said on Wednesday.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had summoned Ekka, the former principal secretary to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren to appear before its regional office here on Wednesday in connection with the money laundering case linked to suspended IAS officer Pooja Singhal.

Ekka, now secretary in the Panchayati Raj department, has sought time after March 24 to appear before the central agency, official sources told PTI.

The 1994 batch Jharkhand cadre IAS officer is likely to be questioned on the alleged irregularities in MGNREGA scheme linked to the suspended 2000-batch IAS officer Pooja Singhal.

Ekka, who is embroiled in the controversy for allegedly signing official documents at a private place, was removed from the post of principal secretary to the CM following BJP's allegation of his conniving with middlemen.

The ED is probing Singhal's role in alleged irregularities in the mining sector of the state too as part of a second case filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) along with the alleged MNREGA scam.

Ekka did not respond to phone calls and messages in this connection. Jharkhand government on Monday had set up an inquiry commission to probe the allegations against Ekka.

This followed BJP leader Babulal Marandi's letter to the state chief secretary Sukhdev Singh on Monday seeking a thorough probe into the alleged involvement of a power broker besides an engineer in the Police Building Construction Corporation, action against Ekka and departmental engineers.

Marandi also provided alleged copies of letters by Ekka and the engineer and claimed that they showed ''a deep rooted nexus''. He also demanded the filing of an FIR against the officers involved. Marandi, a former chief minister of the state, also alleged that an engineer of the Police Building Construction Corporation was re-appointed on contract after retirement without any advertisement for the post. The department of personnel, administration and rajbhasa in a notification said that it considers the issue to be of public importance necessitating a thorough, independent and impartial inquiry. The department appointed Justice (Retd) Vinod Kumar Gupta, a former chief justice of Jharkhand High Court as a one member commission of inquiry for probing all the issues and allegations pertaining to the matter.

The commission will complete its inquiry within six months and submit a report containing its conclusion, findings and recommendations to the government, it added.

Ekka will be the third serving IAS officer who has been summoned by the ED after Singhal and Sahibganj Deputy Commissioner Ramniwas Yadav.

The ED has said it seized cash amounting to more than Rs 36 crore linked to alleged illegal mining during investigations in two money laundering cases against Singhal and others. Singhal, a 2000-batch IAS officer and former mines secretary of Jharkhand, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on May 11, 2022 on money laundering charges linked to alleged irregularities in the MGNREGA scheme. Raids were conducted in properties linked to her. Singhal's chartered accountant Suman Kumar Singh was apprehended by the ED with Rs 19.31 crore in cash from his office and residence in May last year and has been in custody since then. The Supreme Court had granted interim bail to Singhal in the case on February 10 for a period of two months to enable her to look after her ailing daughter.

On March 4 Marandi had released a 22 second video clip at the party headquarters here claiming that Ekka could be seen signing government files in the private office of a power broker in it. Following this the state government had replaced Ekka with Vandana Dadel and transferred him to the panchayati raj department within hours. On March 6 a nine-member delegation of the Jharkhand BJP had met Governor C P Radhakrishnan and urged him to direct the state government to facilitate a CBI probe into charges of corruption against Ekka.