New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate’s prosecution complaint against Sanjeev Hans has accused the former Bihar government top IAS of recouping bribes of Rs 60 crore from an electrical infrastructure firm, which inked a Rs 3,300 crore contract with Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited during his tenure as the chairman and managing director of the state utility. It also directly linked Hans with assets of Rs 100 crore.
According to the ED chargesheet, a firm, named Genus Power Infrastructures Limited, which won the contract to supply smart meters across the state in 2022-2023, routed Rs 60 crore to Hans through the subcontracting of work in the name of companies controlled by him and his associates, ThePrint has learnt.
The ED, on 18 October this year, arrested Sanjeev Hans, a 1997-batch IAS of the Bihar cadre, in Patna and also caught former Jhanjharpur MLA Ghulab Yadav — identified as a close associate of Hans — in Delhi.
The ED case stemmed from a Bihar Police FIR filed based on a complaint from an Allahabad High Court lawyer, who mounted allegations of rape against Yadav and Hans. While the Patna High Court quashed that particular FIR, the Bihar government’s special vigilance unit (SVU) filed another case of disproportionate assets against the duo.
The anti-money laundering agency, so far, has arrested 11 people in the case, and all except Hans’s batchmate from IIT Delhi, Vipul Bansal, are in judicial custody now. Bansal was granted interim bail on medical grounds.
In its first prosecution complaint, the ED has named Hans and Yadav, Pushpraj Bajaj and Praveen Chaudhary — two vendors in the energy and water resources department and close associates of Hans — and one Shadab Khan.
When ThePrint contacted Sanjeev Hans’s lawyer for comments on the allegations against the IAS, advocate Suraj Samdarshi refused to comment, citing limited authority and that he was only representing Hans before the court.
The central agency started its action against Hans and Yadav earlier in April this year when it raided 20 locations over two days, covering Hans’s residence in Bihar’s Patna, his wife’s place in Delhi, his home in Punjab’s Amritsar, and Yadav’s residences in Jhanjharpur and Patna.
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Kickbacks routed through firm controlled by aide
During the raids, the ED seized 15 watches of luxury brands, such as Rado, Rolex and Monte Blank — worth approximately Rs 40 lakh — and 1,100 grams of gold from Sanjeev Hans’s premises in Patna.
Later in September this year, the agency raided four locations linked to Vipul Bansal and other middlemen — who allegedly helped Hans recoup the bribe amount in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
In the ED chargesheet filed before a special PMLA court in Patna on Monday, investigators said that Genus Power Infrastructures won contracts worth more than Rs 3,800 crore for installations of smart meters from two power distribution companies in the state—South Bihar Power Distribution Company and North Bihar Power Distribution Company—between 2022 and 2023.
At the time, Sanjeev Hans was the principal secretary of Bihar’s energy department.
Sources in the ED said Dhoot Infrastructure Projects Limited’s Pawan Dhoot forged an agreement with Genus Power to help the company obtain the contract at a four percent commission of the total contract value.
They further pointed out that Rs 60 crore of the Rs 123 crore agreed upon by the parties went to Dhoot Infrastructure before being transferred to the bank accounts of Prema Smart Solution Private Limited, which Pushpraj Bajaj, a long-term associate of Sanjeev Hans, controlled.
“There were negotiations for approximately Rs 123 crore of bribe from Genus Power Infrastructures, but only half it could be paid as the investigation started against Hans and his aides,” a source in the agency told ThePrint.
The bribes, officials said, were channelled through firms, such as Prerna Smart Solution and Dhoot Infrastructure Projects, by individuals, such as Praveen Chaudhary, Shadab Khan and Pushpraj Bajaj.
“His associates assisted him in generating proceeds of crime (POC) and also in their layering, laundering and concealment. The generated POC have been utilised to invest in the share market, acquire immovable and movable properties, and meet various expenses in cash,” officials said.
Simultaneously, the agency attached seven immovable properties, such as three land parcels in Nagpur, one flat in Delhi and three flats in Jaipur — worth Rs 23.72 crore —acquired in the name of Hans’s associates, such as Praveen Chaudhary and Pushpraj Bajaj, and his family members.
The flat attached in Delhi is located in Delhi’s posh location, Anand Niketan, and has a market value of approximately Rs 10 crore, investigators have alleged in the prosecution complaint, adding that it is way beyond Hans’s legal income.
Additionally, the agency has frozen nearly Rs 6 crore stashed in 70 bank accounts opened in Hans’s name or the names of his relatives — which, officials have alleged, are proceeds of crime.
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What happened to this news ?? This also seems to have been buried under the money power by companies and bureaucracy nexus. No update here and all involved parties including listed companies going scot-free
Why single out Sanjeev Hans? IAS, IPS, IFS, IRS and officers of other such UPSC cadres are usually corrupt. Almost all of them have assets worth hundreds of crores.
Our politicians are evil but they are not sophisticated. Hence, they get caught.
But our bureaucrats are both evil and uber-smart. Despite looting the nation, they go around scot-free and their heads held high.