AHMEDABAD: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested venerable Surendranagar district collector Rajendrakumar Patel in connection with a bribery-linked cash laundering case. Patel, an Indian Administrative Provider (IAS) officer of the 2015 batch, is the second civil servant to be arrested by ED on this case.
Patel, who had been removed because the district collector on December 24 after the arrest of a a deputy mamlatdar, turned into arrested in Gandhinagar late on Thursday night and taken to Surendranagar for investigation, said an unswerving aware of the subject.
The Enforcement Directorate and the affirm’s Anti Corruption Bureau lately registered circumstances in opposition to Patel, his private assistant Jayrajsinh Jhala, clerk Mayursinh Gohil and deputy mamlatdar Chandrasinh Mori after ED seized ₹67.5 lakh in cash from Mori’s pickle and arrested him.
A native of Ahmedabad, Patel holds a bachelor’s stage in dental surgical treatment and a postgraduate stage in public policy. Sooner than Surendranagar, he served in earnings and district administration roles, handling land, law and uncover and coordination of govt departments on the district level.
The case has brought scrutiny on district-level administration, where collectorates play a central position in land conversions, non-agricultural permissions and thoroughly different earnings-connected approvals. As Surendranagar collector, Patel headed the district administration and exercised closing authority over land-use and thoroughly different key earnings choices processed by the collectorate, officials said.
Throughout searches utilized at a pair of areas connected to Mori, ED realized ₹67.5 lakh in cash. Investigators said on the time that Mori would possibly possibly no longer satisfactorily fresh the source of the cash. ED handled the seized cash as proceeds of crime generated by nefarious practices.
At the time, ED concluded that the restoration of cash pointed to a better diagram of illegal collections linked to unswerving work utilized from the collectorate, in region of an remoted act by a single unswerving.
ED alleged that the accused mute bribes as “bustle cash” to expedite applications.
“It appears to be like that evidently bribes were also taken for routine work by deliberately conserving up info that were in any other case appealing in the customary path and then demanding cash to expedite them. Various such info had been recovered from the collectorate and are beneath examination. At this stage, it’s moving to evaluate the fleshy scale of the alleged scam,” said an ACB unswerving aware of the subject.
The agency alleged that proceeds of crime exceeding ₹1 crore were generated by misuse of unswerving build and that properties obtained from such proceeds are but to be identified.
