New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided four locations linked to middlemen, business associate and a batchmate of Bihar civil servant Sanjeev Hans in three cities as part of probe into a case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against him and former Jhanjharpur MLA Gulab Yadav, ThePrint has learnt.
Sources in the agency told ThePrint that raids began early Tuesday morning with teams reaching two locations in Delhi linked to a middle man, who allegedly helped Hans and his batchmate exchange bribes.
The next day, locations linked to Hans’ batchmate in Mumbai and another business associate in Kolkata, who allegedly fixed several deals for Hans and Yadav, came under scanner, they added.
In these raids, ED sources said, investigating officers seized approximately Rs 85-90 lakh unaccounted cash, 13 kg of silver bullion and incriminating documents such as details of hawala transactions, sources said.
A 1997 batch officer of the Indian Administration Service (IAS), Hans was transferred from the post of principal secretary in the energy department to the General Administration Department in wake of the ED’s raids against him in July.
Yadav had quit the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to join the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to contest the 2024 parliamentary elections. The BSP candidate, however, came third in Jhanjharpur.
In July, ThePrint reported that the ED filed the money laundering case based on an FIR of the Patna Police on the direction of a lower court, which sought report on the complaint of a Allahabad High Court lawyer, who had alleged that Yadav and Hans allegedly raped her for years.
Though the Patna High Court on 6 August quashed the case against Hans, ED officials told ThePrint that the case stands against Yadav, and, hence, the money laundering probe is being continued.
Additionally, they said that officials have already given some 15-page list of “incriminating evidence” against Hans to Bihar’s vigilance department, which subsequently sought permission from the Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to initiate criminal proceedings.
“His batchmate owned a real estate business in Mumbai, and he sought help from Hans to sort government matters in exchange of bribes paid through a middleman in Delhi. Evidence is piling up against him. The vigilance department has been made aware of the evidence against him, and there will be updates to it,” an ED official said.
“Once, the vigilance department initiates a probe and a case is registered, it will be clubbed with the pre-existing ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report) as part of the procedure.”
The raids on Tuesday and Wednesday were the second round of action in the case after similar action at nearly 20 locations, including Hans’ residence in Patna, his wife’s residence in Delhi and native place in Amritsar, in July.
During the first round of raids, the ED confiscated 15 luxury watches worth approximately Rs 40 lakh from Hans’ premises in Patna, along with 1,100 grams of gold.
Back then, the ED sources told ThePrint that Hans and Yadav allegedly forged bonds in 2012-13 when the civil servant was posted as the district magistrate in Madhubani under which the Jhanjharpur assembly constituency falls. Their business bonds flourished over the years allegedly leading to a joint venture between Yadav and Hans’s wife to come up with a CNG station in Maharashtra’s Pune, they added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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