New Delhi: More than four years before the Jharkhand Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested former Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) chairman L. Khiangte on 10 August, amid mounting pressure from protesting students over alleged irregularities in government recruitment exams, at least three senior IAS officers faced a similar fate.
The series of high-profile arrests began in May 2022, when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) recovered at least Rs 17 crore at the residence of a Ranchi-based chartered accountant allegedly linked with senior IAS officer Pooja Singhal.
Since then, two more IAS officers seen as key in the Hemant Soren-led government have been arrested. The agency also arrested CM Soren on 31 January 2024 in connection with a money laundering probe linked to land deals; he is out on bail in the case.
ThePrint looks at the spate of arrests in Jharkhand leading up to Khiangte’s arrest.
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The Singhal saga
Singhal came under the ED’s scanner in a case related to the embezzlement of MGNREGS funds amounting to Rs 18.6 crore when she was posted as Deputy Commissioner in Khunti district between 2009 and 2010. As part of the probe, the agency arrested a former junior engineer, Ram Binod Prasad Sinha, in 2020. Sinha, according to the chargesheet, told the agency that he paid a commission to senior officials from the embezzled funds.
The agency raided around a dozen locations in May 2022, linked to a man named Suman Kumar, whom it identified as a chartered accountant for Singhal. From Suman Kumar’s premises, the agency recovered at least Rs 17 crore, which Kumar alleged belonged to Singhal.
The ED said Kumar was filing Singhal’s income tax (I-T) returns since 2012 and that he had also allegedly passed on Rs 3 crore cash to builders for the purchase of land for Pulse Hospital, run by Singhal’s husband, Abhishek Jha, in Ranchi. The agency further alleged that the couple deposited Rs 1.43 crore into their own bank accounts, which was far more than the income disclosed in the I-T returns filed for the year (2011) preceding the deposit.
Of this Rs 1.43 crore, Jha transferred Rs 43 lakh to Usha Construction to purchase the first floor of Orchid Building, where the Pulse Diagnostic and Imaging Centre was established.
The Special Court granted her bail in December 2024, and she rejoined the services last January. She is currently serving as secretary, IT and e-Governance department.
Chhavi Ranjan’s troubled tenure
Less than a year after Singhal’s dramatic arrest in Ranchi, the ED returned with sweeping raids at the premises of another IAS officer, Chhavi Ranjan, who was serving as director of the Social Welfare department in Soren’s government. The money laundering case stemmed from a Ranchi Police FIR lodged on the complaint of a municipal corporation inspector, who alleged transfer of defence land based on forged documents.
The allegedly fraudulent land deal took place during Ranjan’s tenure as Deputy Commissioner of Ranchi, and the agency accused the 2011-batch IAS officer of abusing his official position to give the deal the go-ahead.
In its prosecution complaint, the ED alleged that the land plot measuring 455 decimals in Ranchi belonged to the late B.M. Laxman Rao, who had given it to the Army, which held its possession since Independence.
However, the land was transferred to Jagatbandhu Tea Estate Pvt Ltd, run by Amit Kumar Agarwal, for a highly undervalued consideration of Rs 7 crore, allegedly based on fake ownership details prepared in the name of Pradeep Bagchi, a Ranchi-based businessman.
The agency alleged that the conspirators tampered with records. Bagchi claimed that his father, Prafulla Bagchi, had granted the land to the Army through an oral agreement and that Pradeep Bagchi was the rightful claimant to the property.
The ED alleged that after creating forged documents, Bagchi and his “syndicate” approached one Prem Prakash, identified by the agency as a power broker, for the deal.
Prakash was allegedly close to Ranjan, Ranchi District Collector at the time, and the agency alleged that Ranjan influenced his subordinates to approve the land deal, overlooking other documents and proceedings available to him in his capacity as District Magistrate.
Curious case of Vinay Kumar Choubey
The following year, the ED returned to carry out searches at the premises of another IAS officer, Vinay Kumar Choubey, a key figure in the Hemant Soren-led government.
Choubey, who had once served as principal secretary to Soren, was raided by the ED as part of a probe into irregularities in the state’s excise policy.
The Chhattisgarh Anti-Corruption Bureau’s First Information Report (FIR) named Choubey along with Anil Tuteja, former joint secretary in the Chhattisgarh Industry and Commerce Department; Arun Pati Tripathi, former special secretary of the Chhattisgarh excise department; and Anwar Dhaber, the brother of then Raipur mayor Aijaz Dhaber—all under probe in the Chhattisgarh liquor policy case.
However, he was arrested by the Jharkhand Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) last May on similar charges of running a syndicate with a Chhattisgarh-based businessman and causing a loss to the Jharkhand exchequer. Choubey secured bail in the case last August as the ACB did not file a chargesheet within 90 days.
However, he remained in jail as the ACB booked and took him into custody in another case related to a fraudulent land deal in Hazaribagh between 2008 and 2010 when he was DC in the district.
The ACB accused Choubey of approving fraudulent land deals involving plots totalling 5,000 acres in Hazaribagh during his tenure as the District Collector. The Supreme Court ordered his release on bail in the case on 31 July this year. Having secured another default bail in the disproportionate assets case, Choubey walked out of jail.
Shortly after Khiangte’s arrest, opposition leader Babulal Marandi compared the former JPSC chairman’s case with the ACB’s failure to file charges against Choubey in the liquor policy and disproportionate assets probes. He said Choubey’s arrests earlier and now Khiangte’s were made to shield them from an ED probe.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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