Former principal secretary to the Chief Minister, Rajeev Arun Ekka, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate on Monday in connection with a probe into a money laundering case.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) questioned Rajiv Arun Ekka for hours. Ekka reached the central probe agency office at Hinoo at 11 am today and the ED interrogated him for hours. This is the second summons that ED appeared before the agency, earlier he had skipped the ED interrogation on plea that he was busy due to the budget session of the Assembly.
Ekka came on ED radar after BJP leader and former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi released a video clip in which Ekka was seen disposing of government files from the office of Vishal Choudhary, a suspect in a money laundering case. 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.
In view of the “signing of official documents at a private place”, BJP leader and former chief minister Babulal Marandi had written a letter to Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh earlier this month, seeking a thorough investigation into the alleged involvement of a power broker in the case, besides an engineer in the Police Building Construction Corporation. Marandi also sought action against Ekka and departmental engineers.
Ekka is the third IAS officer to be interrogated by the ED in the illegal mining case. Prior to this, Puja Singhal's location was raided, and her case is pending before the special court. Saheb Ganj DC Ram Nivesh Dwivedi was also summoned by the ED.