'Illegal' land deals: J'khand IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan remanded to ED custody

Jharkhand IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with its probe into alleged illegal land deals, was on Saturday remanded to six-day ED custody by a special PMLA court here, an official said.

The Enforcement Directorate sought 10-day custody to interrogate the former Ranchi deputy commissioner, he said.

Ranjan's lawyer Abhishek Krishna Gupta said the court remanded the 2011-batch IAS officer of the Jharkhand cadre to six days of ED custody, and he will again be produced on May 12.

Ranjan was arrested late on Thursday night and taken into ED custody after he was interrogated for around 10 hours.

The special court had on Friday sent Ranjan to Birsa Munda Central Jail, Hotwar.

The investigating officer of the case recorded a statement of Ranjan under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The ED had, on April 24, also questioned him for around 10 hours in connection with its money laundering probe into the alleged illegal land deals.

Ranjan was briefly questioned by the agency on April 13 as well, when searches were carried out at his premises and those of some others in Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal.

The ED had earlier arrested seven people, including a Jharkhand government officer, after the raids.

The central agency is investigating more than a dozen land deals, including one pertaining to defence land, wherein a group of mafias, middlemen and bureaucrats allegedly ''connived'' in forging deeds and documents from as early as 1932.

Land parcels of the poor and the downtrodden were 'usurped' as part of this fraud, sources had said.

This is the second case in which a Jharkhand cadre IAS officer has come under the scanner of the ED.

Last year, the central agency arrested 2000-batch IAS officer Pooja Singhal in a money laundering case linked to the alleged embezzlement of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme funds in Khunti and other suspicious financial transactions.