Following the significant cash seizure of over 36 crore in Ranchi, Jharkhand, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested Sanjiv Lal, personal secretary to state rural development minister Alamgir Alam, and Lal’s maid Jahangir Alam. They were presented before the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court, which remanded them to six days of ED custody.
On Monday, the ED raided the premises of both Sanjiv Lal and his domestic help Alamgir Alam in premises in Jharkhand’s Ranchi. Following that a total seizure of cash was recorded at 35.23 crore. Continuing its action, the ED carried out fresh searches at five locations in Ranchi on Tuesday, and seized around 1.5 crore from a contractor identified as Rajiv Kumar Singh.
Of the seized cash, 32.20 crore were recovered from a flat in the Jharkhand capital where Jahangir Alam was residing and about 3 crore from another location that included 10.05 lakh from Lal’s place. According to sources, it took the probe agency almost 12 hours and six counting machines to complete the counting process. The report also said that an official communication between the ED and the state government was also recovered with the stash of the cash.
On Tuesday morning, the duo was produced in a special PMLA court and has been sent to ED remand for six days. The ED told the court that Jharkhand Minister’s secretary collected commission on tenders on behalf of “some influential people”. ED also claimed that officials of rural development department, from “top to bottom”, were involved in an alleged illegal cash payment nexus.
Alamgir Alam, 70, has distanced himself from the activities of Lal and said that the secretary had earlier served with other ministers of the state government too. ED’s remand paper says “It is ascertained that Sanjeev Lal takes care of the collection of commission on behalf of some influential persons and plays a pivotal role in managing the tenders and collection of commission from engineers.”
The probe agency also said that names of “senior bureaucrats and politicians” have emerged in the case and this is being investigated. In February 2023, ED arrested Virendra K Ram, the chief engineer at the Jharkhand Rural Development Department in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in implementation of some schemes. He was arrested based on a Jharkhand Police anti-corruption branch (Jamshedpur) case and a March 2023 FIR filed by the economic offences wing of the Delhi Police.
