Taking a major punitive action under the stringent money laundering provisions in the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam, the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday attached assets worth Rs60 crore belonging to former Uttar Pradesh Minister Babu Singh Kushwaha and others.
The zonal office of ED in lucknow attached a number of residential flats and other immovable assets registered in the name of Kushwaha, a former BSP leader and Family Welfare Minister in the erstwhile Mayawati-led Government in Uttar Pradesh and his associate and co-accused in the case RP Jaiswal.
The properties have been attached in lucknow, Banda, Gautam Budh Nagar (Noida) and Delhi.
The agency will soon issue prohibitory orders on these assets and the accused will have the option to challenge the order before the Adjudicating Authority of PMlA within 180 days. The agency had registered a case under the Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMlA) in 2012 and subsequently established these assets to be “proceeds of the crime” of illegal laundering of Government funds sanctioned under the NRHM scheme.
The ED had registered 14 separate cases in 2012 against Kushwaha and others to probe the alleged financial irregularities in the NRHM scheme taking cognisance of the CBI FIR registered earlier.
Kushwaha is also a key accused in a CBI case relating to the alleged corruption and laundering of Government funds earmarked for implementation of the Centrally-funded health scheme in Uttar Pradesh.