A press release dated January 23, 2025, Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Patna states that ED, Patna in connection with money laundering case related to Patna Railway Claims Tribunal scam carried out search operations at four locations related to Judge R.K. Mittal and other involved advocates in Patna, Nalanda and Mangalore. It has arrested three advocates- Bidyanand Singh, Parmanand Sinha, and Vijay Kumar on January 22, 2025 for offense of money laundering related to this scam under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. The accused were produced before the Special Court (PMLA). They have been sent to judicial custody. Rahul Navin is the Director of Enforcement and Yaduraj Singh is the Joint Director Patna Zonal Office.
ED initiated investigation on the basis of FIRs registered by CBI, ACB, Patna regarding mass scale irregularity/ criminality in the death claim cases filed, processed and decided at Railway Claims Tribunal, Patna (RCT) against unknown public servants of Railway, Bidyanand Singh, Parmanand Singh, Vijay Kumar and others under various sections of IPC, 1860 and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
According to the FIRs, in pursuance of a criminal conspiracy, in accidental death claim cases, only a part of the decreed amount, actually awarded to the claimants, was received by the claimants and major chunk was siphoned off by the conspirators.
ED investigation revealed that Advocate Bidyanand Singh and his team of advocates including Advocate Parmanand Sinha and Advocate Vijay Kumar dealt around 900 cases where decrees/execution orders were issued by Judge R.K. Mittal wherein approximately Rs. 50 Crore compensation was awarded to the claimants.
It is revealed that Advocate Bidyanand Singh and his team of advocates opened and operated the bank accounts of claimants without their knowledge and using the signatures and thumb impressions of these claimants transferred the claim amount received from the railways to their own accounts or withdrawn in cash. Later, they gave some amount to the claimants as compensation as per their will. The searches resulted in identification of assets acquired by the advocates and judge in their names and recovery of physical and digital records including signed blank bank cheques and signed blank papers by the claimants. Further investigation is under progress.
The Directorate originated on May 1, 1956, when an ‘Enforcement Unit’ was formed in the Department of Economic Affairs for handling Exchange Control Laws violations under Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA), 1947. In 1957, this Unit was renamed as ‘Enforcement Directorate’. In 1960, the administrative control of the Directorate was transferred from the Department of Economic Affairs to the Department of Revenue. FERA, 47 was repealed and replaced by FERA, 1973. For four years (1973 – 1977), the Directorate was under the administrative jurisdiction of the Department of Personnel & Administrative Reforms. FERA, 1973 was repealed and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA) came into operation on June 1, 2000. The PMLA was enacted in 2002 and the ED was entrusted with its enforcement from July 1, 2005. The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 (FEOA) has been enacted and ED is entrusted with its enforcement with effect from April 21, 2018. This enactments have been made under the International Anti Money Laundering regime.
No comments:
Post a Comment