ED accuses Ranchi police of wrongful detention

Ranchi, March 27: In a bribery case of about Rs 6 crore , ED (Enforcement Directorate) has accused Ranchi Police of wrongly detaining two people.

After this allegation, the government has rejected the verbal allegations made by ED and has asked to present it in writing with evidence. On this, the court has fixed the date of 24 April for the next hearing of the case.

The petition filed by ED demanding a CBI inquiry into the alleged bribery allegations was to be heard in the court of Judge A.K. Chaudhary on Thursday.

During this, ED accused the police of unauthorizedly detaining two people with the aim of collecting fake evidence against its officers.

This allegation was opposed by the government and it was said that without written and concrete evidence, these allegations have no justification.

It is noteworthy that earlier ED had made such allegations against the police in the petition related to the demand for CBI investigation. In the petition filed on behalf of ED, it is said that the police wrongly detained advocates Sujit Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar Pandey to collect evidence against ED.

ED alleges that on October 9, 2024, the police seized Sujit Kumar’s Scorpio (JH-01FR-4730) and the mobile phones of both.

ED’s investigation revealed that Sujit’s Scorpio had a GPS installed and the data of that GPS confirmed that the vehicle was parked at Pandra police station since October 5, 2024. Apart from this, the police claimed to have seized a diary from the Scorpio, which mentioned that money was given to ED officers in the name of saving the zonal officers of Kanke. ED found in its investigation that the location of both the phones seized by the police was at different places, and it was proved that the police had wrongly detained Sanjeev Kumar Pandey from 5 October 2024 to 17 October 2024 and Sujeet Kumar from 6 October 2024 to 17 October 2024.

ED also alleged that Sanjeev Kumar Pandey had paid a bribe of Rs 35 lakh, Jai Kumar Ram Rs 3.40 crore and an iPhone, Diwakar Dwivedi Rs 1 crore, and Prabhat Bhushan Rs 1.05 crore. ED revealed large-scale irregularities in the land case during the investigation of Kanke Zonal Office.

After this, an FIR was registered against Kamlesh Singh in the police station on charges of land fraud, on the basis of which an ECIR was registered and investigation of the case was started.

ED filed a chargesheet under PMLA (money laundering) on 24 September 2024 against six people including Kamlesh Kumar Singh, Zonal Officer Jai Kumar Ram, former Zonal Officer Diwakar Dwivedi. A week after the chargesheet was filed, two FIRs were registered at Pandra police station. One FIR was lodged by advocate Sujit Kumar, in which he was accused of kidnapping and other charges. The second FIR was lodged by Sanjeev Kumar Pandey, in which Zonal Officer Jai Kumar Ram and former Zonal Officer Diwakar Dwivedi were accused of giving bribe in the name of saving them from ED in the case of purchase and sale of land by forging documents in Kanke zone.

ED started investigation by registering ECIR on the basis of these two FIRs and filed a petition in the High Court demanding CBI investigation of both the FIRs registered at Pandra police station.

Next hearing: The next hearing of the case will be held on 24 April 2025, in which the allegations will be debated in more detail.