RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, April 3: The Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) special court dismissed the discharge petition of suspended senior IAS officer Pooja Singhal.
With the dismissal of petition, path has been paved for the process of framing charges against the suspended senior bureaucrat, whom the Supreme Court has granted provisional bail to serve her ailing daughter in Delhi.
Before the PMLA special court judge P.K.Sharma gave the verdict, advocate Vishwajit Mukherjee and Vikrant Sinha argued on behalf of Singhal while Atish Kumar argued on behalf of the enforcement directorate.
The Charge sheet has already been filed in the court against Singhal, her CA Suman Kumar and Khunti’s assistant engineer Shashi Prakash. The court so far framed charges against one person, former JE Ram Vinod Prasad Sinha, in the case.
Singhal had been detained by the ED on May 11 last year in connection with a money laundering case involving alleged MGNREGA funds misappropriation in Jharkhand’s Khunti district. After two days of interrogation, the suspect was arrested.
The agency had taken her into custody for five days beginning May 12 and was later extended to May 25 by the special PMLA court. She was apprehended when the ED conducted operations in four states. The agency recovered Rs 17 crore from her husband’s chartered accountant Suman Kumar’s home.
