Ranchi: In the Army land scam case former Ranchi DC and IAS Chhavi Ranjan on Monday appeared before the enforcement directorate in connection with the Army land scam. The IAS officer who had reached at the ED’s zonal Office at the collectorate at around 10.30 AM remained for nearly 10 hours and departed around 8.30 PM.
Prior to his departure Uday Shankar Singh who is an employee at the Chief Minister’s Office and is also the Personal Private Secretary of Abhishek Prasad Pintu who is the media advisor to the Chief Minister Hemant Soren was brought for questioning at the ED Office. A printer and some other documents which were recovered from his home have been also brought at the ED Office for questioning.
Chhavi Ranjan appeared before the agency after it issued the third summons to him. Earlier the ED had issued two summons to Chhavi Ranjan and has asked to reach the regional office on Monday at 11 am. Earlier, the ED had issued a summons to him on April 17 and asked him to reach the ED regional office on April 21, but he did not turn up. He had sought two weeks’ time through his lawyer.
On this, the ED again issued summons on the same day asking them to come to the office by 4 pm. Even after this he did not appear. On not reaching the regional office, the ED issued a third summon and asked to reach the office on April 24.
Lawyer of the IAS officer said that paternity leave was cited as the reason for not appearing before the ED on April 21. If sources are to be believed, before the ED’s notice, he had applied for paternity leave from the government.
He had already received paternity leave from the government from April 17 to May 1 that is why he gave an application and requested to give time after the first week of May. However, ED officials did not accede to his request. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday, April 13, raided a total of 21 locations of 18 people involved in the land business, including IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, circle officer Manoj Kumar, in connection with government land misappropriation.
The raids covered 18 locations in Jharkhand, one in Bihar and two in West Bengal. Chhavi Ranjan is currently posted as Director of Social Welfare. In another development, the ED on Monday also got remand for three more days of the six men who had been earlier arrested in this scam. The ED had actually arrested seven men out of which on Monday it got remand of six while the seventh person was sent to jail.