The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday seized ₹3 crore in cash during a raid conducted in connection with the money laundering case involving Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer Pooja Singhal. The searches were conducted at a location in Hazaribag district of Jharkhand, news agency ANI reported. 

Singhal had in February surrendered before the special PMLA court. It was at the same time, the Supreme Court had granted the suspended officer an interim bail for a period of two months so that she could look after her ailing daughter.

The ED officials informed that wads of cash, largely in the denomination of ₹500 and a few ₹2,000 notes, were seized from the premises of a person identified as Mohammed E Ansari.

Pooja Singhal, a 2000-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on May 11 on money laundering charges linked to alleged irregularities in the MGNREGA scheme.

In December last year, the ED had has attached immovable properties worth ₹82.77 crore linked to the jailed IAS officer. 

The Jharkhand mining secretary was arrested in May in 2022 in the money laundering case. The ED had conducted raids against the bureaucrat, her businessman husband Abhishek Jha and others on 6 May in Jharkhand and a few other locations.

The ED probe against Singhal and others pertains to a money-laundering case in which former junior engineer in the Jharkhand government, Ram Binod Prasad Sinha, was arrested by the agency on 17 June 2020 from West Bengal after he was booked by the agency under the PMLA in 2012 after studying the FIRs of the state vigilance bureau against him.

Sinha was booked by the vigilance bureau under criminal sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) pertaining to cheating and corruption for allegedly defrauding public money and investing it in his own name as well as in the name of his family members while working as junior engineer from April 1, 2008 to 21 March 2011.

The said money was earmarked for the execution of government projects under MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) in Khunti district, the agency had earlier said.

Sinha told the ED that "he paid five per cent commission (out of the defrauded funds) to the district administration."

During the period, the ED had alleged, charges of "irregularities" were made against Singhal while she served as the deputy commissioner/district magistrate of Chatra, Khunti and Palamu between 2007 and 2013.

Image courtesy: PTI