Ranchi: A case will now be registered in the ACB against Virendra Ram, the suspended Chief Engineer of the Rural Works Department, who was suspended for acquiring illegal assets worth Rs 125 crore and corruption. The case will be registered under the Disproportionate Assets and Prevention of Corruption Act. CM Hemant Soren has given his consent on this.
Jamshedpur surveillance had registered an FIR in 2019 on the complaint of contractor Vikas Sharma. The contractor had complained that he had completed work worth Rs 14.54 lakh. Out of this, he has received the payment of seven lakhs. Junior engineer Suresh Verma is demanding a bribe of Rs 28 thousand at the rate of 4 for the payment of the remaining seven lakh rupees.
On the complaint, the vigilance arrested the junior engineer red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000. During the search, jewellery and Rs 2.44 crore in cash were recovered from his house. On the other hand, Engineer Virendra Ram’s paternal department of water resources has issued the order after the report given to the government by the ED. The letter related to the registration of the case has been sent to the Cabinet, Monitoring and Secretariat Department. The Law Department has also given consent.
In fact, on November 15, 2019, an engineer named Suresh Verma was arrested on charges of bribery. 2.67 crore cash was recovered from his rented house. ACB said during this action that this money belonged to Virendra Ram. But at that time ACB did not make Virender an accused. When the level of corruption was revealed in the ED’s action, the ACB decided to make Virender an accused of disproportionate assets in the same case. Since this matter was in the trial phase in the court, the court did not consider it maintainable.
The court said to the ACB in its instructions that if they want, they can get a separate FIR done. On February 21 this year, the ED raided 24 locations of Virendra Ram, Chief Engineer, and Rural Development Department. During this, apart from the companies created by Virendra Ram, assets worth 100 crores were detected. During the raid, jewellery worth Rs 1.5 crore and about Rs 30 lakh in cash were found.
The ED had raided the premises of Virender Ram’s family members, family members of his Delhi-based CA Mukesh Mittal, contractors Atiqullah Ansari and Alok Ranjan. Jamshedpur surveillance had registered an FIR in 2019 on the complaint of contractor Vikas Sharma. The contractor had complained that he had completed work worth Rs 14.54 lakh. Out of this, he has received the payment of seven lakhs. Junior engineer Suresh Verma is demanding a bribe of Rs 28 thousand at the rate of 4% for the payment of the remaining seven lakh rupees.
On the complaint, the vigilance arrested the junior engineer red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000. During the search, jewellery and Rs 2.44 crore in cash were recovered from his house. This money was of advocate Alok Ranjan. The ED took up the investigation by registering the surveillance FIR as ECIR. During the investigation, Suresh Verma said the recovered money belonged to Executive Engineer Virendra Ram. After getting information about this,
ED started investigation in connection with Virendra Ram and his family members. It was raided on February 21 after getting information and evidence of many sensational cases.