The heat of cash scandal reached Jharkhand Ministry, old Rs 500 notes seized in ED raid

ED Raid in Jharkhand: ED raid continues in Ranchi, Jharkhand in the Tender Commission money laundering case. During the raid so far, ED has recovered an amount of more than Rs 37 crore. ED raid continued on Wednesday also. The ED team took Sanjeev Lal, the personal secretary of Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam, arrested in the cash scandal case, to his office located in the Ministry of Jharkhand. The ED team investigated there for about 3 and a half hours and conducted a search operation.

During this, ED recovered 1 lakh 75 thousand new notes and 28 thousand old currency notes of 500 rupees from Sanjeev Lal’s office. Not only this, ED has also recovered some important documents from the office. Due to which the crime of Sanjeev Lal is proved. Sanjeev Lal and his servant are on ED remand for 6 days.

what was the whole matter

In fact, on 14 November 2019, the Anti Corruption Branch of Jharkhand had caught Suresh Prasad Verma, a junior engineer of the Rural Department of Jharkhand, while taking a bribe of Rs 10,000. This bribe was being taken from a contractor named Vikas Sharma. Contractor Vikas Sharma had complained about this to the Anti Corruption Branch of Jharkhand. Vikas Sharma had told the Anti Corruption Branch that Suresh Prasad Verma was demanding a bribe of Rs 28 thousand in exchange for passing a bill for a tender. The first installment of bribe was Rs 10,000.

After this, on 15 November 2019, the Anti Corruption Branch raided the first floor of Suresh Prasad Verma’s house. A person named Alok Ranjan lived on this floor on rent. During the raid, the Anti Corruption Branch also recovered Rs 2.67 crore. When Alok Ranjan was interrogated, he could not give any answer about the money, hence he was also arrested.

This is how ED entered this case.

Anti Corruption Branch took the investigation forward. Both were taken on remand and interrogated. During interrogation, accused junior engineer Suresh Prasad Verma told that Alok Ranjan is the cousin of Chief Engineer Virendra Kumar Ram posted in the Rural Department and Chief Engineer Virendra Kumar Ram and his wife often came to the house to meet Alok Ranjan and the recovered amount was Rs 2.67 crore. The owner is Chief Engineer Virendra Kumar Ram. Because this case was related to money laundering, ED entered this case. Based on the FIR of Jharkhand Anti Corruption Branch, ED registered the case and started investigation and arrested Chief Engineer Virendra Kumar Ram.

Shocking revelations during interrogation

During interrogation, Chief Engineer Virendra Kumar Ram had told that he used to take bribe in the name of commission for awarding tender to any contractor. Virendra Kumar Ram had also revealed that the bribe money was sent to government officials, bureaucrats and politicians. When ED investigated the bank accounts of Chief Engineer Virendra Kumar Ram and his family, crores of rupees were found in them. Investigation also revealed that accused Virendra Kumar Ram deposited movable and immovable properties in the name of his father Genda Ram, wife Rajkumari and other family members. All this wealth was created with bribe money.

Investigation also revealed that Rs 9.30 crore was deposited in the joint account of Virendra Kumar Ram and his wife from 2014-15 to 2018-19. Not only this, investigation also revealed that Rs 4.5 crore was deposited in the bank account of the father of accused Virendra Kumar Ram from 21/12/22 to 23/01/23 i.e. 31-32 days. This amount was deposited from the accounts of chartered accountants named Mukesh and Mohit Mittal.

What clue did you get from CA Mukesh Mittal?

When ED interrogated CA Mukesh Mittal, he told that the accused Chief Engineer had given him Rs 5 crore in cash. That money was used to buy property in a posh area of ​​Delhi in the name of his father Genda Ram. Therefore, that amount was deposited in the account of the accused’s father.

Names of bureaucrats and politicians surfaced in ED investigation

During the search, ED also found many documents related to bribe in exchange for award of tender in the rural department from the house of accused Virendra Kumar Ram. Investigation had revealed that accused Chief Engineer Virendra Kumar Ram played a role in awarding tenders and giving work to private institutions and passed bribe commission to senior government officials including high ranking bureaucrats and politicians. The names of many big bureaucrats and politicians had come up in the ED investigation, which the ED was continuously investigating.

ED raided during investigation

Taking this investigation forward, ED raided 6 locations in Ranchi on Monday. This raid took place at 6 places including the house of Sanjeev Lal, personal secretary of Jharkhand Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam and Sanjeev Lal’s servant Jahangir Alam. During this raid, ED recovered Rs 32.20 crore from the house of Sanjeev Lal’s servant Jahangir Alam, Rs 2.93 crore from the residence of another close friend and Rs 10.5 lakh from the residence of Sanjeev Lal. Both were also arrested. Private secretary Sanjeev Lal and servant Jahangir were presented in the court. Where ED demanded 10 days remand of both and the court gave 6 days remand of both.

What did ED tell the court?

ED told the court that Sanjeev Lal used to collect this commission from the tender and Virendra Kumar Ram had also confessed during interrogation that Sanjeev Lal had received a huge amount of crores of rupees till September 2022 in lieu of the tender issued by him. . ED told the court that this bribe money was distributed equally among all the officers and politicians of the department. Not only this, ED also told the court that the commission money is also sent to government officials. Apart from this, ED said that during the investigation, names of many bureaucrats and politicians have come to light. Which are being investigated.

ED also said that many officials from top to bottom of the Rural Development Department were involved in this nexus and the game of taking bribe through tender was going on. In this matter we have come to know about some bureaucrats and white collar people who have to be investigated.

The money was kept at the behest of Sanjeev Lal

ED told the court that the money recovered from the house of accused Jahangir Alam was kept at the behest of Sanjeev Lal. Which he had collected on behalf of some influential people. During investigation, it has come to light that other assistant engineers were also involved in the collection and distribution of the tender. Now the biggest question in this matter is whether Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam had no information about this. The private secretary was playing such a big game of bribery and he had no idea about it. Is ED now going to tighten its grip on the Rural Development Minister? These are all the questions for which ED is looking for answers.

Also read- ED Raid: From bribe of Rs 10,000 to pile of notes worth Rs 37 crore, the whole story of Ranchi cash scandal…