The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a chargesheet in a money laundering case against former Rural Development Minister of the state Alamgir Alam, his personal secretary Sanjeev Lal and assistant Jahangir Alam. In the chargesheet filed by the ED, all three have been accused of money laundering.
The ED in its charge sheet has alleged that the rate of commission was fixed for officers and employees at every level in the development schemes run by the department. During Alamgir's tenure, about Rs 3000 crore has been alleged to have been collected as commission and laundered.
The chargesheet states that a gang was active in the department to collect and distribute the commission amount. It included departmental officers including contractors, engineers. The ED in its charge sheet has stated that 1.5 percent commission was fixed for the departmental minister in development schemes. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has presented several documents to prove the ongoing commission taking in the department. This also includes the Excel sheet recovered from the personal secretary. This sheet mentions the name of the schemes run by the department, its cost, total commission and share in the commission.
The report says that the money recovered from Jahangir's house was collected as commission from development schemes. The report says that the commission rate for senior officers was fixed at 0.75 to 1.50 percent. ED has accused him of acquiring immovable property by laundering the commission amount. Jahangir is said to be close to the personal secretary of the minister. The report says that during the investigation so far, some properties of the accused have been identified. Also, more properties are being traced.
The Enforcement Directorate has seized property worth Rs 4 crore of Alamgir Alam's personal secretary Sanjeev Lal and assistant Jahangir. ED has issued an order regarding the seizure of property. The seized property includes the flats of Sanjeev Lal and Jahangir. ED found in its investigation that the financial source of the property purchased in the name of Sanjeev Lal and Jahangir is not legal. The amount of commission collected in the development schemes run by the Rural Development Department has been used to purchase the flats.
The Enforcement Directorate on May 15 had arrested Jharkhand Minister and Congress leader Alamgir Alam in connection with a money laundering case.
Alam's arrest comes a day after he was grilled for over nine hours by the central probe agency at its zonal headquarters in Ranchi.
On May 6, the Enforcement Directorate raided the apartment of Jahangir Alam, who is the house help of Alamgir Alam’s personal secretary Sanjeev Lal, and recovered over Rs 37 crore in cash. Both Alam and Lal were arrested after the raid.
