ED summons IAS officer in money laundering case against Jharkhand minister Alamgir Alam

Ranchi, May 22

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The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Jharkhand-cadre IAS officer Manish Ranjan for questioning in a money laundering case in which it recently arrested state minister Alamgir Alam, official sources said on Wednesday.

Ranjan is a former secretary of the rural development department. He is currently the secretary of land, road and building department and has been asked to depose before the federal agency at its zonal office here on May 24, the sources said.

The summons is linked to the ED investigation in which Congress leader and state rural development minister Alamgir Alam, his former personal secretary Sanjeev Kumar Lal and the latter’s domestic help Jahangir Alam were arrested early this month.

The agency had claimed to have recovered more than Rs 32 crore from a place where Jahangir Alam was residing. The total cash seizure in this case is Rs 37.5 crore.

The probe pertains to alleged irregularities and bribes exchanged between officials and others from contractors working in the state rural development department.

The agency had earlier informed a local court here that it had arrested former chief engineer of the rural development department Veerendra Kumar Ram last year as part of this probe.

“Ram used to collect commissions in terms of allocation of tender and execution of work and the said commission fixed share of 1.5 per cent was distributed to minister Alamgir Alam,” the ED had said.

This money laundering case of September 2020 is based on an anti-corruption branch (Jamshedpur) case of the Jharkhand Police and a March 2023 FIR filed by the economic offences wing of the Delhi Police against Ram and others.