The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday grilled 1994 batch Jharkhand cadre IAS officer Rajiv Arun Ekka for the second consecutive day. The ED officials quizzed Ekka about his links/ association with power broker Vishal Choudhary. The ED officers queried how the official documents of his department were found in possession of money laundering suspect Vishal Choudhary. Sources said that Ekka failed to give any satisfactory reply to ED on how the official documents reached Choudhary’s office.
The ED is questioning Ekka after BJP leader Babulal Marandi had circulated this video and alleged Ekka of wheeling and dealing. The Hemant Soren government withdrew him as home secretary and the principal secretary of the CM. He was transferred to the department of Panchayati Raj and an inquiry was constituted against him.
On the second day too, Ekka reached the ED office at Hinoo on time. He reached the ED office at 11 am. Sources said that the ED officials also showed the video to Ekka in which he is seen viewing and signing an official file. In the background someone identified as Vishal Choudhary is heard talking about some payment.
The suspect, Vishal Choudhary, had faced an ED raid in May last year. Sources said that during the raid on Choudhary, the ED gathered electronic evidence and on that basis, a summons was sent to Rajiv Ekka. The former principal secretary to the CM, was removed from the Chief Minister’s Office after charges were brought against him by the opposition leader.
Ekka appeared before sleuths of the Enforcement Directorate here in connection with a probe into the alleged irregularities in the MGNREGA scheme and money laundering linked to cases against Pooja Singhal,” an official of the central agency said.
The agency is also probing Singhal’s role in the alleged irregularities in the mining sector of the state as part of a case filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) along with the MGNREGA ‘scam’, the ED official said.
The state government had earlier set up a one-member inquiry commission headed by Jharkhand High Court’s former chief justice Vinod Kumar Gupta to probe into the allegations against Ekka.