RANCHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), after a prolonged interrogation for over 15 hours, finally arrested Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal in a money laundering case linked to alleged embezzlement of MGNREGA funds among other charges.
Chartered accountant Suman Kumar, associated with Pooja Singhal, was already arrested three days back.
The 2000-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer has been taken into ED custody under the relevant sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Singhal was arrested on the second day of questioning. ED sources told that her replies to the questions asked by ED during grilling were not satisfactory and her replies were evasive. She was officially arrested around 4.30 PM an hour after her husband Abhishek Jha arrived at the ED office after being summoned.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will produce her before a local court here seeking her remand.
According to the information provided to the court by ED, Rs 1.43 crore more than the known sources of her income were recovered from the bank accounts of Pooja Singhal while she was Deputy Commissioner in Khunti, Palamu and Chatra. The ED also claimed that Singhal purchased as many as 13 insurance policies by paying a premium of Rs 80.81 lakh and closed them before completion of their tenure and got Rs 84.64 lakh against them.
The ED also informed that Singhal transferred Rs 16.57 lakh to the three bank accounts related to CA Suman Kumar. The ED is said to have gathered sufficient primary evidence to suggest that she is in close connection with CA Sunman Kumar and had financial transactions with him.
Notably, the ED on Friday conducted raids at several locations, including that of Pooja Singhal, in connection with a money laundering case linked to alleged embezzlement of over Rs 18 crore MGNREGA funds in Khunti district during 2008-2011.
The raids were conducted at a total of 18 locations including Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, NCR as well as Ranchi, Khunti and Dhanbad in Jharkhand. Singhal, as Chatra Deputy Commissioner, has been accused of paying Rs 6 crore in advance to the two NGOs – Welfare Point and Prerna Niketan for musli farming, which, actually was never done. In addition to that, while being Deputy Commissioner in Palamu, she was charged of transferring 83 acres of forest land to a private company for mining, a matter which is related to Kathautia Coal Mines.