VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Aug 17: The Enforcement Directorate has secured six days’ remand of Jharkhand High Court advocate Rajiv Kumar who is currently lodged at Alipur Jail in Bengal following his arrest by the Kolkata police last month.
The special PMLA court of Prabhat Kumar Sharma of Ranchi civil court granted the ED police custody of Rajiv Kumar effective from August 20. During the hearing Rajiv Kumar was produced before the PMLA court through video conferencing. A team of senior ED officials has left for Kolkata to bring back Rajiv Kumar to Ranchi for questioning.
The ED said that the agency has taken up a case for investigation related to seizure of Rs 50 lakh from the possession of Rajiv Kumar in which his police remand will be required. The FIR was originally lodged by the Kolkata police at Hare Street police station. The ED said that the agency lodged an ECIR in Ranchi and Rajiv Kumar is the accused in this case.
Earlier, the ED court had issued his production order and directed his physical appearance before the court on August 18. The court also directed Birsa Munda Central Jail authority to ensure that Rajiv Kumar is produced as per the order. The jail officer made a submission before Alipur Jail and the special court in Kolkata in this regard. But the request was turned down as the Birsa jail authorities could not produce the copy of the production order.
The Kolkata police arrested Rajiv Kumar on July 31 on the charge of extorting money from businessman Amit Agrawal for giving him relief in a PIL 4290/21 filed by Shiv Shankar Sharma at Jharkhand High Court and Rajiv Kumar was pleading this case. Police said that he was trapped along with the cash which he had extorted from Amit Agrawal in the name of safeguarding him in a PIL 4290/21 against Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren.
On August 10, the ED took over the investigation of this case and an ECIR was lodged at the Ranchi zonal office of the agency. The ED prayed the PMLA court to issue a production order for Rajiv Kumar.
Notably, in this case, Kolkata police even summoned the deputy director of the Odisha zonal office of the ED Subodh Kumar, and asked him to record his statement. Subodh Kumar was earlier posted as deputy director at the Ranchi zonal office of the agency. The Kolkata police summoned him on the basis of some of his alleged WhatsApp conversations with Rajiv Kumar. The allegation against Rajiv Kumar is that he along with petitioner Shiv Shankar Sharma files PILs in order to extort money from businessmen and companies.
