ED arrests IAS Pooja Singhal in money laundering case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday arrested Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal after questioning her for two days in a money laundering case linked to alleged embezzlement of MGNREGA funds in Khunti district, officials said. The agency questioned Singhal and her husband, who runs a super speciality hospital, for around nine hours on Tuesday. Her husband has been called for questioning again on Wednesday. She is a 2002 batch IAS officer. The ED investigation pertains to a money laundering case in which former junior engineer in the Jharkhand government, Ram Binod Prasad Sinha, was arrested by the agency on June 17, 2020 from West Bengal after he was booked by the agency under the PMLA in 2012 after studying the FIRs of the state vigilance bureau against him. 

CA Suman Kumar was arrested in the case on May 7 after over Rs 17 crore cash was seized from his premises. He is in ED custody till May 11.The agency has claimed that Singhal and her husband received "huge" cash deposits -- to the tune of Rs 1.43 crore -- over and above her salary in their accounts. The ED also told a special PMLA court in Ranchi that the IAS officer allegedly transferred Rs 16.57 lakh from her "personal account" to those controlled or owned by her CA Kumar.