NEW DELHI/RANCHI: After the Enforcement Directorate (ED) asked Jharkhand IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan to appear before it by 4 pm on Friday for his questioning in a money laundering investigation linked to an alleged illegal land sale, he sought a fresh date saying he is not in Ranchi now.
Ranjan's lawyer said he will return to the state capital on Saturday evening.
The 2011-batch officer had initially been asked to appear before Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials on April 21 at the agency's office in Ranchi in connection with the probe.
Ranjan appealed for deferment of its summons beyond April 21.
The ED, however, rejected his plea and asked him to ensure the deposition by 4 pm on Friday.
Ranjan's lawyer Abhishek Krishna Gupta said, "Since he is out of town and would return on Saturday evening, we have sought any other date next week and assured the ED that he will appear for questioning and extend full cooperation to the agency probing the case."
The officer was questioned briefly by the agency on April 13 when searches were carried out in this case at his premises and those of some others in Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal.
An assistant registrar of assurances of the West Bengal government based in Kolkata has also been asked to depose on May 2, ED sources had said.
The agency had arrested a total of seven people, including a Jharkhand government officer, after these raids.
The action was taken under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the agency is looking at more than a dozen land deals, including one pertaining to defence land, wherein a group including land mafia, middlemen and bureaucrats allegedly "connived" in forging land deeds and documents from as early as 1932.
Land of the poor and the downtrodden were "usurped" as part of this fraud, ED sources had said.
To launch its investigation under the PMLA, the federal agency took cognisance of a police FIR of forgery of some personal identification documents registered by the civic authorities concerned.
The agency, according to the sources, has recovered a number of fake seals, land deeds and registry documents during the searches.
This is the second case in which a Jharkhand cadre IAS officer has come under the scanner of the ED.
Last year, the ED had raided and arrested IAS officer Pooja Singhal in a money laundering case.