Rs 10,000-crore hawala racket in...........

After CBI raid, three ED officers shunted out

The three officers of the Enforcement Directorate, Ahmedabad, who have been booked by the CBI in an alleged corruption case, have been shunted out of Gujarat. The decision came on Friday, two days after the CBI raided ED’s office and conducted searches at the residence of these officers, including Joint Director and IRS officer J P Singh.

Singh has been asked by the department to “proceed on leave” with immediate effect. He has been replaced by Additional Director, west zone, Virendra Ojha, who took over on Saturday. Two assistant director-level officers — Sanjay Kumar and P S Srinivas — have been transferred outside Gujarat. The orders, dated September 25, have been passed on at the behest of ED chief and IPS officer Karnal Singh. According to sources, Singh is likely to be sent back to his parent cadre in central Customs and Excise.

These three officers, who are facing charges of “demanding and accepting huge amount of bribe”, had busted the Rs 10,000-crore hawala racket in Surat and over Rs 2,000 crore international cricket betting racket, involving a large number of businessmen and hawala operators. Kumar is the investigating officer (IO) of cricket betting while Srinivas, who was posted in Surat, is the IO of hawala racket. The Surat hawala case is also among the cases monitored by Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing black money.

On the other hand, according to sources, the three accused officers have also been summoned by CBI in Delhi on Monday, along with eight others, who are said to be connected with the officers. Sources refused to divulge the identity of these persons and their connection with the officers, but said that they were businessmen “closely known to the accused officers”.

Sources revealed that the CBI action had come following a number of complaints against the officers, mostly by the accused in both the cases. “A series of complaints against Singh and others officers started flooding the ED offices in Mumbai and Delhi since July. These complaints were related to bribery and ill treatment meted out to the accused by Singh,” said a source.

One Dulraj Uttam Chand Jain, against whom a non-bailable warrant was issued in hawala case, had filed a petition in the Gujarat HC earlier in August in which he levelled serious allegations against Singh, Srinivas and Deputy Director H S Jain. On September 16, Jain withdrew his petition from the court, stating that he would file a fresh petition. In this petition, Jain had alleged that he was asked for money to avoid arrest.