Income-Tax officials on Tuesday conducted raids at the residents of senior state officials, including that of Chief Minister Shibu Soren’s personal secretary M L Pal, in connection with a multi-crore money laundering scam involving former chief minister Madhu Koda.
Ujjawal Chaudhary, income tax director (investigation), said raids and searches are being carried out over 60 places across the country, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Jamshedpur, Chaibasa and Ranchi. “The searches are in continuance to the probe in the illegal investments and Hawala case related to Madhu Koda,” said Chaudhary.
I-T sources said Soren’s personal secretary Pal, an associate of Koda, a retired IAS officer and former mines secretary Jaishankar Tiwari, two former chiefs of Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB) S M Verma and V N Pandey are prominent among those under the taxmen’s scanner and their locations were raided.
The development came after Koda’s interrogation by a team of Enforcement Directorate on January 21 and 22 in judicial custody. On October 9, the Enforcement Directorate lodged a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Koda and his associates. The former chief minister is alleged to have acquired disproportionate assets worth about Rs 2, 000 crore, which include investments in Malaysia and Thailand.
Last year on October 31, the I-T department conducted raids at 70 locations, and investment records allegedly belonging to Koda and six close associates were seized during raids in Mumbai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Jaipur, Delhi, Jamshedpur, Ranchi and Chaibasa.
Good, but what happened to the fodder scam searches made ages ago? We do not find any news of the results of those searches. Will these also end up like the fodder and bitumen scams, etc. ?