The Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday granted bail to suspended IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan in connection with the Cheshire Home land scam case. The bail was granted by the court of Justice Rangon Mukhopadhyay as part of an ongoing investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Despite this Chhavi Ranjan will continue to remain in judicial custody due to his involvement in a separate land scam case related to Army land in Ranchi. The court granted bail in the ED's case number ECIR 5/2023, but Ranjan has yet to secure bail in another ED case (case number ECIR -1), commonly referred to as the Army land scam.

Chhavi Ranjan, who served as the Deputy Commissioner of Ranchi, was arrested by the ED on May 4, 2023, following raids on multiple locations linked to the land scam. He is accused of abusing his official powers as a public servant to provide undue advantages to private parties, leading to personal gain. The alleged misconduct occurred during his tenure from 2020-21 to 2022.

One of the key accusations against Ranjan involves a conspiracy with power broker Prem Prakash and businessman Amit Kumar Agrawal to illegally transfer 4.55 acres of Army land in Ranchi to a company named M/s Jagatbandhu Tea Estate Pvt. Ltd.

The land in question originally belonged to a man named BM Laxman Rao, who transferred it to the Army after India's independence. The syndicate allegedly forged documents to claim the land, with one of the arrested individuals, Pradeep Bagchi, falsely presented as the owner. The land was then sold to Jagatbandhu Tea Estate Pvt. Ltd., a West Bengal-based company.

Sources said that allegedly the conspiracy was orchestrated by a group that included Afshar Ali, Pradip Bagchi, Chhavi Ranjan, Prem Prakash, and Amit Kumar Agarwal, among others.