VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, May 12: Chartered Accountant Suman Singh has disclosed that most of the cash amount seized by the Enforcement Directorate belongs to IAS officer Pooja Singhal and he collected cash on her instruction.
Suman Singh was arrested on Wednesday by the ED on the charge of money laundering. Cash worth Rs 19.31 Crore was recovered from her residence and office during the raid.
According to the remand petition filed by the ED in the PMLA court, Suman Singh has also disclosed that on instructions of Pooja Singhal, he gave rupees three crores in cash to Govind Sarawgi for the purchase of land for the construction of the Pulse Hospital owned by Pooja Singhal and her family. The ED carried a valuation assessment of the land and building of the hospital. This includes one diagnostic centre owned by Pooja Singhal. It is worth more than Rs 40 crores and additionally, the value of Plant and machinery is found to be more than Rs 30 Crores.
The ED, in its petition, claimed that the said asset was undervalued and the tainted funds were being laundered through the Pulse hospital. The ED has said that Pooja Singhal played a pivotal role in the construction and management of the important affairs of the Pulse Super Speciality Hospital and the huge payments were usually received in cash.
The ED has claimed that IAS Pooja Singhal regularly received bribes from junior engineer Ram Binod Sinha who is a key accused of the MNREGA scam in the Khunti district. She was the DC of Khunti from February 16, 2009, to July 19, 2010, when the scam worth Rs 18 crores took place.
The ED recorded several statements of another accused. One of them said that Ram Binod Sinha was given a free hand to loot money since he had the patronage of Pooja Singhal. He confessed in his statement that Ram Binod Prasad Sinha was paying bribes to Pooja Singhal as on four occasions he had seen “Ram Binod Sinha handing over bags containing 18-20 gaddis of notes of Rs. 500 denominations.”
Another witness who is learnt to have handled and transferred the bribe amount to Pooja Singhal said that Ram Binod Sinha after receiving the advance payment from the department used to withdraw the funds received for work in the form of cash.
“This cash was used to be “forwarded to Pooja Singhal through me as per the direction of Pooja Singhal. I never counted the money that was given to me by Ram Binod Sinha to be further given to Pooja Singhal as it used to be in locked bags and I only used to hand over the same bag to her,” the statement reads.
“However, I state that 5% commission of the advance paid by the department to the executive agency used to be given by Shri Ram Binod Prasad Sinha against the allocation of work to me, which I further used to give to Pooja Singhal, Deputy Commissioner,” the statement further reads.
