Recently in a significant case in connection with Money laundering, the Jharkhand High Court denied bail to Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer Pooja Singhal and held that Property derived or obtained as a result of criminal activity was regarded as tainted property.
Pooja Singhal, the petitioner was posted as Deputy Commissioner in Khunti district as the principal authority for sanctioning funds for different development projects. The co-accused Ram Binod Prasad Sinha was posted as Junior Engineer during that period in Special Division as well as District Board, Khunti and has stated in his statement recorded under section 50 of PMLA that he used to pay 5% of the disbursed amount as commission to DRDA and Deputy Commissioner Office and extra commission of 5% to the Executive Engineer and Asst. Engineer.
It was alleged that the petitioner was the principal authority for sanctioning funds for different development projects, in connivance with co-accused Jai Kishore Chaudhary. Instead of the same, she used to obtain the illegal commission from Ram Binod Prasad Sinha in cash and ignored all the irregularities and misdeeds by him.
In an inquiry,it was founded that there were huge differences in the quantum of funds released to the Junior Engineer and the quantity of the completed work in respective projects. In many cases, it was seen that the construction work of nominal value was done against the withdrawal of a substantial amount allocated for the given project.
Under this, the ED conducted searches at several properties linked to Singhal and two others (her husband and her CA) and it recovered Rs 19.76 crore cash. She along with her CA was arrested and sent to judicial custody by the court of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The case of the ED is that Singhal used to receive a 5% “illegal commission” in development projects in Khunti from funds she disbursed for the works under MGNREGA. She maintained two PAN and an amount of Rs 73.81 lakh was found deposited in her ICICI bank accounts. Of the Rs 73.81 lakh, Rs 61.5 lakh was found to have been deposited between 2009-11, which the ED alleges, constituted “proceeds of crime”.
On the other hand, the petitioner denied all the charges and allegations levelled against her and argued that sheis a responsible IAS officer who constituted a committee to look into the alleged embezzlement of the funds.
The Court viewed that a sum of Rs.01.33 crore had been deposited in the form of cash in the name of the brother of her Chartered Accountant and her mother and therefore, it cannot be said that she was not using the proceeds of the crime in light of section 2(1)(u) of the PML Act.
It was observed that a false certificate was tried to be obtained on the medical ground to obtain the benefit of a medical certificate by her. The medical report suggested that she was well-oriented stable and fit medically and psychologically.
The HC bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi held that the apprehension about tempering with the evidence cannot be ruled out andrefused to grant the petitioner the benefit of regular bail.
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