VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, May 21: The day the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out a massive raid (May 6) against Jharkhand Mining and Industry secretary Pooja Singhal in the money laundering case, the district mining officer Satyajeet quietly walked to the mining department to withdraw his resignation.
He is the same person who was Ranchi district mining officer under whose tenure the stone mining lease was issued to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren at Angara. He had issued the letter to Hemant Soren to submit documents after Ranchi DC Chhavi Ranjan passed the order to issue a Letter of Intent in favour of the chief minister for mining purposes. This is evident from the official letter 615/June 16, 2021, signed by him.
Sources claiming to be close to him said that Satyajeet is the product of the Indian School of Mines and he joined the mining department as a mining officer in 2016-17. He is said to have worked in a coal company also.
Interestingly, he submitted his resignation from the job on April 30 last year citing personal reasons. On August 10 last year, he sent a reminder to the department to accept his resignation.
“A day after the reminder of resignation he sent, Satyajeet stopped coming to the office. He became incommunicado. He cited personal reasons that he never explained to anyone. He is very shy and avoids controversy. The reason behind his resignation could be that he might not be feeling comfortable. We came to know that he had planned to visit the USA for higher studies but due to Covid 19 there were travel restrictions. His resignation is still a mystery,” said a source in the mining department who knew him. The insider claimed that after the ED raided Pooja Singhal his family and well-wishers convinced him to withdraw his resignation.
But despite more than a year, he had put up his paper to quit the government job, his resignation was not accepted.
“It may be a coincidence and it can be intriguing also that he withdrew his resignation letter the same day the raid was carried out. Currently, he is waiting for the posting. He visits the office every day. But we were given to know about a couple of strange things that happened to him during the Covid 19 pandemic last year. Apparently, the local police had visited his residence in Ranchi for not complying with an order. The family felt humiliated. But what was the reason we don’t know because he is an introvert,” said an official of the mining department.
His name flashed after BJP’s Godda MP Nishikant Dubey claimed that Satyajeet under pressure signed the mining lease paper of the CM and he resigned as he feared being arrested in the future on the charge of wrongdoing.
