Jharkhand: ED grills senior IAS officer for second consecutive day

Ranchi (Jharkhand) [India], March 29 (ANI): Senior IAS officer and former Principal Secretary to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Rajiv Arun Ekka was questioned by Enforcement Directorate for the second consecutive day on Tuesday at the zonal office in Ranchi over a viral video case.

“Today, he was interrogated for around 11 hours on the matter. Yesterday the agency questioned him for 10 hours,” an ED official said.

Jharkhand cadre IAS officer Rajiv Arun Ekka is under Enforcement directorate scanner after BJP leader Babulal Marandi released a video in a press conference featuring Rajiv Arun Ekka, where he is seen signing a file, allegedly at a private office owned by one Vishal Chaudhary who is already under the scanner of the agency in connection with the Pooja Singhal money laundering case.

After the video surfaced, ED summoned Rajiv Arun Ekka and asked him to appear before the agency on March 15. He didn’t turn up on March 15 and sought time till the Jharkhand Assembly Budget Session. On the second summon, he made his first appearance on March 27.

Ekka, who also held additional charge of the home, prisons and disaster management and information and public relations, besides being principal secretary to the chief minister, was transferred to the Panchayati Raj department within hours after the BJP released the video levelling serious allegations against him.

Taking cognisance of the incident, the Jharkhand government has also constituted the one-member commission of inquiry headed by former high court chief justice Vinod Kumar Gupta, with a mandate of submitting its finding report in six months.

In May last year, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal in connection with a money-laundering probe linked to the alleged embezzlement of MGNREGA funds and other charges.