New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday questioned a Bihar cadre IAS officer and summoned another for Friday, intensifying its probe in the alleged multi-crore tender irregularities in the state, days after the Patna High Court flagged the sluggish pace of the investigation. The court also pulled up the Bihar State Vigilance Unit, wondering if it was trying to “save some and implicate a few”.
While IAS officer Santosh Kumar Mall is being examined at the agency’s Patna Zonal office, suspended IAS officer Yogesh Sagar sought time from the agency, and he has been asked to appear in the first week of November, ThePrint has learnt.
Meanwhile, IAS officer Anand Kishor has been asked to appear on Friday.
Before them, the agency questioned four more IAS officers this week in connection with the case—suspended officer Abhilasha Kumari Sharma, Dharmendra Kumar, and Sunil Kumar Yadav.
All these officers have denied allegations against them.
ThePrint earlier reported that these senior Bihar government civil servants came under the ED’s crosshairs after their alleged long-term association with well-connected contractor Rishu Shree emerged during the agency’s probe in a 2024 money-laundering case involving the contractor and another IAS officer, Sanjeev Hans.
The cooperation and collusion among the seven officers and the 38-year-old contractor, the ED had alleged, date back to their tenures with the Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation (BUIDCO), and the Urban Development & Housing Department (UDHD).
The entire case emanates from an unrelated rape FIR filed with the Patna Police aginst Hans in 2023 based on a complaint by a Uttar Pradesh woman. While the rape FIR against the 1997-batch Bihar cadre officer was quashed by the Patna HC, the initial probe suggested money laundering, triggering an ED intervention.
The ED filed a money laundering case and arrested Hans in 2024.
Meanwhile, the ED also shared alleged incriminating material with the Bihar government, leading to registration of a corruption case by the Special Vigilance Unit (SVU) against Rishu and several public servants in Bihar last year.
The ED itself initiated a fresh money laundering probe in February 2025. The case centred around Rishu and some senior officers in Bihar.
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The ‘nexus’
The SVU arrested Rishu in May this year and he has been lodged in Patna’s Beur jail since. Meanwhile, he moved the HC seeking anticipatory bail in the February 2025 money laundering case.
The ED opposed Rishu’s plea, telling the court he was at the centre of a nexus involving at least six more IAS officers, apart from Hans, and hence, his interrogation was essential. The ED had made similar arguments before the court in November 2025 when Rishu had sought the quashing of the agency’s case altogether. The HC dismissed Rishu’s petition in May this year, giving the central agency a virtual green signal to continue with its investigation.
Days later, the Bihar government suspended the two officers Abhilasha Kumari Sharma and Yogesh Sagar.
The HC took up Rishu’s anticipatory bail petition last month, and asked 16 questions from the agency, including whether it had shared with the Bihar government the names of officials other than Hans and, if yes, did they seek any explanation from the SVU why those officers were not named in the case.
In response, the central agency submitted that it had shared credible information against six senior government officials, but there was no “procedural or legal necessity” for the agency to seek explanation from the SVU why the officers were not named.
The ED said an FIR against unknown public servants provides full scope to the state investigating agency to examine, array and charge any official whose role is substantiated during investigation at the time of supplementary chargesheet.
However, the court observed that the agency was not clear in its response as to whether it had issued any summons to the officials Rishu had allegedly named in his disclosures, which had formed the basis of the FIR against government servants.
“…ED ought to have issued summons to the officials who were named in the FIR and even those whose name was disclosed by the petitioner, but then from perusal of the (ED’s) counter affidavit, it manifests that the same does not record that any summons were issued to the senior officials including those who were not named in the FIR which gives an impression that the investigation of the ED is not progressing in the manner it ought to have been…” Justice Satyavrat Verma observed in the judicial proceedings on 15 October.
The High Court also took on record the submission made by the ED that it did not need to wait for the state agency to probe and implicate officers in the predicate offence before it could summon them.
The agency said it draws its independent power under Section 50 of the PMLA, 2002 to directly summon and examine any person whose involvement or connection with the proceeds of crime transpired during its investigation under money laundering,
Justice Verma observed, “…the answer is clear that ED has the power to issue summons but then Court fails to appreciate that why no summons were issued to the officials whose name transpired in the statement of the petitioner, as it does not appear probable that money laundering of such a magnitude would have been committed by the petitioner alone in connivance with private players.”
The High Court also pulled up the state’s SVU for failing to name all officials cited by the ED in its case and said that either the state agency was not convinced by the evidence submitted by the central agency or it was an attempt to “save some and implicate a few”.
The High Court asked the SVU chief to file a counter-affidavit explaining the reasons for not arraying officials as accused despite inputs by the central agency.
“It appears that either SVU was not convinced with the information shared by the ED with regard to senior officials, as such did not array them in the category of accused and ED by not issuing summons to the officials despite having information regarding them since 25.02.2025 also reflects that either no material during the course of investigation of ECIR transpired connecting them with the offence or attempt is being made to save some and implicate few,” Justice Verma observed.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)