Sleuths of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Wednesday, raided seven premises owned by former UP minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati in Kanpur, Lucknow and Amethi in connection with a money laundering case.
Sources disclosed that the ED teams searched the places of Prajapati’s chartered accountant in Kanpur, ‘benami properties’ in Amethi and the former minister’s house and office in Lucknow. Prajapati, along with others, is also accused of raping a woman and attempting to molest her minor daughter and has been incarcerated since March 15, 2017. Presently, he is undergoing treatment for various ailments at King George’s Medical University hospital in Lucknow.
The ED is probing the former minister in the SP regime for possessing alleged disproportionate assets. Two FIRs were filed by the CBI against him and others last year in connection with an illegal sand mining case.
Prajapati and four IAS officers were booked by the CBI, on the basis of which the ED filed its money laundering case.
The IAS officers under the lens were Principal Secretary Jiwesh Nandan, Special Secretary Santosh Kumar, and then district magistrates Abhay and Vivek.
The UP government had mandated e-tendering for renewal and award of fresh lease for sand mining across the state on May 31, 2012, which was upheld by the Allahabad High Court on January 29, 2013.
In the case involving Prajapati, the CBI alleged that beneficiaries Shiv Singh and Sukhraj used the minister’s influence to get their lease renewed. The process to get the lease of Sukhraj extended was allegedly facilitated by Jiwesh Nandan, then DMs of Fatehpur Vivek Kumar and Abhay in 2014 while Shiv Singh got his lease renewed in 2012. The lease was allegedly renewed in violation of the government’s e-tendering policy.
In the second case, the agency alleged that Vivek, while posted as DM in Deoria, allowed lease renewal of Sharda Yadav. Yadav, whose petition for renewal of lease was dismissed by the Allahabad High Court on April 5, 2013, managed to get it renewed the next day in collusion with Vivek and other officials, the CBI alleged.
