There seems to be no respite for suspended IAS officer Pooja Singhal, who is in jail in the money laundering case, as the government has sought the opinion of the Law Department for the pending registration of FIR against Singhal. Along with this, suggestions have also been sought from the Law Department regarding the primary registration. The Enforcement Directorate sent the first report related to the MGNREGA scam to the state government in November 2022 after investigating it. Based on this ED report, a case was registered against Pooja Singhal, CA Suman Kumar and six district mining officials.
Sources said that a 5000-page charge sheet was filed in connection with the MGNREGA fund scam involving suspended IAS officer Pooja Singhal and others. Apart from Singhal, some mining officials and others have also been named as accused in the case. Singhal, the mining secretary in Jharkhand, was sacked from his post soon after his arrest. After that in May, the ED questioned Ravi Kejriwal, former treasurer of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in this connection. The central probe agency had scrutinized Singhal's transactions for the last three years to check the suspicious funds. The Enforcement Directorate had also scanned all his properties.
Singhal was arrested on May 11, 2022, in a case involving alleged diversion of MGNREGA funds during her tenure as deputy commissioner in Khunti in 2009-2010.
The probe is linked to 16 FIRs registered against a former government junior engineer in 2010-2011. On May 6, the ED had conducted raids at 18 locations in four states, including premises linked to the Jharkhand Mining Secretary, as part of its probe.
In the first week of January, the Supreme Court granted one-month interim bail to suspended IAS officer Pooja Singhal . A bench of Justices S K Kaul and A S Oka had granted the relief so as to enable her to attend to her daughter who is unwell.
“On hearing learned counsel for the parties on the issue of interim bail, in view of the diagnosis required for the daughter of the petitioner, we grant one month’s interim bail to the petitioner from the date of release, for the time being,” the court had said.
Pooja Singhal's name was also registered in the Limca Book of Records for being the youngest to enter the IAS cadre after passing the country's prestigious UPSC exam at just 21 years of age. Pooja Singhal was first married to Rahul Purwar, an IAS officer, but during the initial years, a dispute started between the two due to some personal reasons and then after divorce, Pooja Singhal married Abhishek Jha for the second time. From studies to job, Singhal's career has been brilliant. Pooja Singhal was born in Dehradun and did her graduation from Garhwal University and became IAS in the year 2000 in her first attempt.