Jharkhand News: In Jharkhand, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also started investigation into the case of fraudulent withdrawal of crores of rupees from the treasuries of the state government as salaries of government employees. ED has registered ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report) in this case and started investigation from the angle of money laundering. Till now the case was being investigated by Jharkhand CID and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the state government. It is believed that after the entry of ED, the problems of many officers and employees may increase.
This case is related to suspicious withdrawals from Ranchi, Hazaribagh and Bokaro treasury. ED has initiated action on the basis of FIR registered in these cases. The investigating agencies suspect that a huge amount was fraudulently withdrawn from the government treasury and later some part of it was also deposited back. There is talk of names of many officers, even DSP rank officers, coming forward in this entire matter.
So far, 12 people have been arrested in the investigation by police and SIT. Animal Husbandry Department accountant Munindra Kumar and his associate Sanjeev Kumar have been arrested in the Ranchi case. Investigation revealed that Munindra Kumar had made fake withdrawal by showing his basic salary as Rs 20 lakh.
Saurabh Singh, Rajneesh Kumar Singh, Shambhu Kumar, Kajal Kumari, Khushboo Singh and Dhirendra Singh have been arrested in the Hazaribagh case. Whereas, in the Bokaro treasury case, Kaushal Pandey, Satish Kumar Singh and Kajal Mandal have been sent to jail. Sabita Kumari has also been arrested in the case of suspicious withdrawal from Deoghar treasury in the name of health workers.
The matter came to light when Principal Accountant General (AG) Chandramouli Singh detected irregularities in salary items in the police department during the treasury audit. Initial investigation revealed suspicious withdrawals from Bokaro and Hazaribagh treasuries. After this, the state government started investigation in all the districts and formed a high level committee under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary of Excise Department, Amitabh Kaushal. This committee is currently examining the documents related to Bokaro Treasury.
Later, the Principal Accountant General sent another report to the government, in which the possibility of irregularities was raised in 12 treasuries of Jharkhand. The report also talks about fake withdrawals in the Health and Education Department. After this, the Finance Department instructed all the districts to conduct a detailed investigation. The state government has already constituted SIT to investigate this matter. Now, through ED’s investigation, an attempt will be made to find out where the fraudulently withdrawn money went, who got the benefits from it and who were involved in this entire network.
