Court extends ED’s remand of Jharkhand Minister Alamgir Alam for five more days

Jharkhand Minister Alamgir Alam's remand extended in money laundering case, linked to corruption scandal involving government officials.

The remand of Jharkhand Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam arrested in the money laundering case has been extended for five more days. Mr. Alam was produced in the Ranchi special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court on Wednesday after his remand period got over.

A special court remanded Mr. Alam in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for five more days for questioning. He is being questioned in the case for the last five days at ED’s zonal office in Ranchi.

The ED had earlier arrested Mr. Alam’s Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Sanjiv Kumar Lal and the latter’s domestic help after the seizure of more than ₹36 crore from a flat linked to them.

According to the petition filed in the PMLA court, ED revealed that Mr. Alam used to get 1.5% commission of every tender in his department. The ED has claimed in the petition that Virendra Ram, the then Chief Engineer of the Rural Development Department arrested on March 23, 2023, used to collect the commission of the tenders and passed it on to the Minister. Several assistant engineers of the department were involved in collecting and delivering the commission to Mr. Ram.

In the petition, the ED has also stated that the money recovered from premises linked to his OSD and domestic help belongs to Mr. Alam. Many documents, government papers and letters were found from the house of domestic help.

In the remand petition, ED had said that payment of commission was being carried out in an organised manner in which employees from lower level to top officials were part of it. It is believed that a large amount of cash has been exchanged and efforts are on to uncover the nexus.

He is not the first Congress leader in Jharkhand against whom the federal agencies have taken action. Earlier, the Income Tax Department had conducted raids at the places linked to the Odisha-based distillery group owned by the then Congress MP Dhiraj Sahu and recovered ₹350 crore in cash.