Koda case: Jharkhand ex-ministers' assets frozen

PMLA declared these assets to "have been involved in money laundering"

A special PMLA court has frozen properties worth over Rs 5.8 crore belonging to Kamlesh Kumar Singh, former Jharkhand minister in the Madhu Koda cabinet, declaring them as proceeds of money laundering crime.

 

The order has been issued while confirming a provisional attachment order of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which seized these properties in July last year after taking cognisance of a Jharkhand Vigilance Bureau FIR in the case in 2009. The probe is being done by the Lucknow zonal unit of ED.

 

The Adjudicating Authority of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Delhi, headed by K Raamamoorthy, termed these assets to "have been involved in money laundering" and ordered their attachment.

 

The Authority is a judicial body meant to decide cases of strict enforcement action.

 

Singh was handling the portfolio of Minister for Water Resources, Excise Civil and Food Supplies departments in the state during 2005-09 when Koda was the Chief Minister.

 

He is also a co-accused in the disproportionate assets case slapped against them, along with Koda and others, by CBI.

 

The total value of assets seized under money laundering laws in this case is pegged at Rs 5,83,64,197 by the ED.

 

The investigating agencies, both ED and CBI, recorded in their charge sheets that the Minister had stated his source of income to be from "agriculture, sale of ancestral land, dairy business done by his wife and business of fisheries and hiring and renting of vehicles by his son."

 

The probe agencies, during their investigation, found discrepancies in these claims and hence a case of money laundering was registered against the Minister and his associates which now stand attached.

 

The case was unearthed by multiple agencies in 2009 and the Income Tax department and the ED had claimed to have found a Rs 25,000-crore scam of money-laundering and illegal investments following countrywide raids on 70 premises on October 31 the same year.