VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, July 5: The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday filed a supplementary prosecution complaint against suspended IAS Pooja Singhal in a money laundering case related to the alleged scam in the MNREGA scheme in Khunti district.
The prosecution complaint was also filed against her husband Abhishek Kumar Jha, chartered accountant Suman Kumar Singh besides officials of Khunti district namely junior engineer Ram Binod Sinha, Rajendra Jain, Jai Kishore Choudhary and Shashi Prakash.
The complaint running over 200 pages backed by documents was submitted before the special PMLA court of Prabhat Kumar Sharma.
This is the first-ever prosecution complaint against Pooja Singhal in the money laundering case. However, the ED remained tight-lipped about persons against whom prosecution has been filed and charges against them.
In a prosecution complaint also called chargesheet the ED has accused her of committing a scam in the execution of the MNREGA scheme in Khunti district when she was the Deputy Commissioner cum district programme coordinator of the MNREGA from February 2009 till July 2010. Suman Kumar Singh from whose residence the ED had seized an amount over Rs 19 Crore has been made an accused.
The prime accused of the MNREGA scam, Ram Binod Sinha, who was posted as a junior engineer in Khunti has figured in the supplementary prosecution. This is the third supplementary prosecution against Ram Binod Sinha by the ED who is currently in judicial custody. Ram Binod Sinha and Rajendra Jain have figured in the original FIR lodged by the police.
Notably, the ED on May 6 carried out a massive raid at as many as 25 locations in Ranchi, Kolkata, Muzaffarpur, Delhi and Jaipur against Pooja Singhal, Abhishek Kumar Jha, other family members besides Rajendra Jain.
The Enforcement Directorate questioned Abhishek Jha on a number of occasions as a prime suspect of the money laundering as the ED claimed that Pooja Singhal laundered her unaccounted money in the construction of Ranchi-based Pulse Super Speciality Hospital in Ranchi.
Pooja Singhal was mining secretary when the ED raised and arrested her on May 11 and it was alleged that Suman Singh used to act on her behalf and there were some suspected entry and accommodation showing his dealings with some of the mining officers of the district.
The ED thoroughly questioned mining officers Bibhuti Kumar (Sahibganj), Pradeep Sah (Pakur) and Krishna Kumar Kisku of Dumka.
