New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided several locations in Bihar and Jharkhand on Tuesday morning in relation to a money-laundering probe involving IAS officer Pooja Singhal and others, news agency PTI reported. The raids come days after 44-year-old Singhal was arrested earlier this month in a money laundering case for alleged embezzlement of MNREGA funds in Jharkhand’s Khunti district and other financial irregularities.
The ED raided seven locations under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, officials told PTI.
On May 6, the ED had conducted raids in 18 locations across four states, namely Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, and Punjab, and recovered Rs 18 crore in cash from the house of a Ranchi-based Chartered Accountant who is allegedly linked to Singhal.
Prior to her arrest, Singha was interrogated by the central agency for two days. Her husband and Managing Director of Pulse Sanjeevani Healthcare Private Hospital, Abhishek Jha, was also interrogated by the ED after raiding on the hospital.
2000 batch Indian Administration Services (IAS) officer Pooja Singhal has also served as the agriculture secretary. She was also the secretary of the Department of Mines and Geology and the Managing Director of Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation Limited (JSMDC).
Responding to her arrest, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren said, the state government "will initiate whatever legal action it has to take in this subject,” PTI reported.
He said the alleged irregularities "occurred during BJP tenure and that should be probed."
As per a report by PTI, the money laundering investigation against Singhal and others pertains to a case in which former Jharkhand government junior engineer Ram Binod Prasad Sinha was arrested by the agency on June 17, 2020, from West Bengal.
Singhal was given a clean chit in the case back then. On this, Soren said that the alleged irregularities "occurred during BJP tenure and that should be probed."
It was during the BJP tenure that a clean chit was given to her in 2017. All those who gave her the clean chit should be probed. "You (BJP) make her do the wrong and you (also) give her a clean chit," the CM said, PTI reported.