NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday registered a case of alleged corruption against Joint Director of Enforcement Directorate’s Ahmedabad branch, who was heading the probe into Rs 2,000 crore IPL betting scandal and Rs 5,000 crore money laundering case in Gujarat.
The CBI sleuths carried out searches at five places, including the Enforcement Directorate's Ahmedabad branch and after registering a case.
“The agency has registered a case against Joint Director J P Singh, a 2000-batch Indian Revenue Service officer of Customs and Excise wing, posted at Enforcement Directorate in Ahmedabad, and other unknown public servants and private persons on a complaint from Enforcement Directorate,” said the CBI Spokesperson.
The sources in CBI said that that Rs 15 crore was handed over as bribe to Singh’s father-in-law, S K S Somvanshi, a retired IRS officer of 1978-batch, in Delhi by hawala dealers and tax consultants for giving relief and extending favours to suspects in two cases probed by Enforcement Directorate.
JP Singh and his team were investigating hawala racket worth over Rs 5,000 crore from Surat. They had also chargesheeted 90 persons, including alleged hawala operator Afroz Fatta. Besides, Singh was also probing IPL betting racket in which nine bookies have been chargesheeted.
The agency sources said that Singh allegedly sought favours from few suspects to go soft in the case.
The agency sleuths carried out searches the Enforcement Directorate office in Ahmedabad and residences of Singh and Additional Directors Sanjay Kumar and P S Srinivas, both ED officers in Ahmedabad, and Somvanshi in Delhi.
Sources said the Enforcement Directorate Director Karnal Singh received multiple complaints from various quarters about the alleged demand for bribe by the senior officials of its Ahmedabad unit after which it was forwarded to CBI.
The agency had kept these suspects under surveillance after receiving complaint from ED during which prima facie information about the alleged bribery was collected.
CBI spokesperson said that it has been alleged that certain officers of Enforcement Directorate while investigating the cases of money laundering in betting and other such activities have allegedly demanded and accepted huge illegal gratification from the accused and suspect persons in the said cases.
“Huge bribe amount was allegedly taken by these officers as quid pro quo for various acts of omission and commission,” CBI spokesperson added.
It is pertinent to mention that, the Delhi Police Special Cell had sought time from trial court in Delhi to include the investigation carried in IPL betting racket carried out by Enforcement Directorate in their in the 2013 Indian Premier League spot-fixing case in which three IPL cricketers – S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan -- and 34 others including alleged bookies and fixers were booked.
The trial court had set aside the Delhi Police pea and discharged three IPL cricketers and 34 others including alleged bookies and fixers.