On December 1, 2022, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) attached suspended IAS officer Pooja Singhal’s properties worth Rs 82.77 crore. According to the ED, the properties comprise two land parcels in Ranchi as well as the super specialty hospital named “Pulse Super Speciality Hospital” and the diagnostics center named “Pulse Diagnostic and Imagining Center.”
ED has provisionally attached immovable properties OF Pooja Singhal worth Rs 82.77 Cr in Ranchi. Properties include 1 super speciality hospital namely Pulse Super Speciality Hospital, 1 diagnostics centre namely Pulse Diagnostic And Imagining Centre & two land parcels in Ranchi. pic.twitter.com/SVFwchEISq
— ANI (@ANI) December 1, 2022
Between February 16, 2009 and July 19, 2010, Pooja Singhal served as the deputy commissioner (DC) of Khunti. MGNREGA money was allegedly misappropriated in the Khunti region, along with other shady financial activities, during her stay there.
On the basis of numerous FIRs filed by the Jharkhand Police and the Vigilance Bureau Jharkhand, the ED launched a money laundering probe against Pooja Singhal.
The Khunti district MGNREGA scam in Jharkhand is one of the biggest high-profile scams. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is currently investigating the MGNREGA scam case of Rs 18.8 crore in the Khunti district as well as the irregularities in Chatra worth Rs 6 crore in Jharkhand. Along with this, the ED is probing the illegal allotment of forest land for Palamu’s Kathotia Mines.
The ED gave this information to the Jharkhand High Court while it launched a probe against IAS officer Pooja Singhal who was the District Collector of the respective districts. On April 11, a division bench of Chief Justice Dr. Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad directed the CBI to investigate the scam as well as the role of police officials who kept investigations of the cases pending for the last decade.
On May 6, The Enforcement Directorate arrested Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal in the money laundering case related to the said embezzlement of MGNREGA funds during public works in the Khunti district of Jharkhand. Singhal, who is a 2000-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer along with her businessman husband Abhishek Jha and others is being probed under charges of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the ED.
