JAIPUR: A day after the ED raided CM Ashok Gehlot’s brother, the legal noose around Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat seemed to tighten in Rajasthan. The additional District Court in Jaipur has directed the Rajasthan police to probe a complaint against Shekhawat in the credit society scam worth Rs 840 crore.
Additional district judge Pawan Kumar had on Tuesday, directed the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court to send the complaint against Shekhawat to the SOG. The wife of the Union minister is also named in this case.
Last week, the Special Operation Group (SOG) had sent a notice to Union minister Shekhawat in connection with the case of the audio clips regarding his alleged involvement in horse-trading of MLAs in Rajasthan to topple the Gehlot government.
In the new case, Shekhawat, his wife and other partners have been named in the complaint in the Sanjivani Credit Cooperative Society scam in which around 50,000 investors allegedly lost about Rs 840 crore. The Jaipur unit of the SOG has been probing the scam since last year after an FIR was registered on 23 August 2019.
In the complaint filed by two persons from Jodhpur, it is alleged that a multi-storey building has been built with the money collected by the Sanjivani Credit Cooperative Society instead of a theatre which was proposed earlier. Many properties were also bought with the money, the complaint alleged. Both the complainants had invested a huge amount in Sanjivani credit cooperative society.
An FIR was registered against the Sanjivani Credit Cooperative Society by the SOG in August 2019 which shows that the society had 211 branches in Rajasthan and 26 in Gujarat. A SOG investigation in this case also revealed that a large amount of money has been deposited into accounts of Shekhawat and his wife at different time spans, said sources. The founder and MD of Sanjivani Credit Cooperative Society, Vikram Singh was arrested by the SOG. Vikram and Union minister Shekhawat was partners earlier in property business.
Earlier, Shekhawat was not mentioned in the charge sheet filed by the SOG. But now, Jaipur ADJ Court-8 has ordered a fresh inquiry in the case against Shekhawat accepting the revised application filed by the two complainants and said that "this is a serious matter and hence SOG should investigate this".