A day after the Supreme Court refused to grant him anticipatory bail, the Enforcement Directorate arrested suspended Gujarat cadre IAS officer Pradip Sharma >in connection with the money laundering case .
First arrest in 2009
Mr. Sharma was first arrested in 2009 by Gujarat police in >a corruption case when he was Bhavnagar Municipal commissioner. Subsequently in 2012, the ED had registered a case against him for allegedly violating the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
In its complaint ED claimed that Mr. Sharma, during his tenure as district collector of Kutch in 2003-04, had sold government land at a cheaper rate to Kutch-based Welspun Group causing loss of around Rs 1.2 crore to the state exchequer.
The Welspun company allegedly returned the favour by making Sharma's US-based wife a 30 per cent partner in one of its subsidiary manufacturing packaging material and extended benefits of Rs. 29.5 lakhs.
As per the ED probe, the money was first deposited in Mr. Sharma's wife account and then subsequently transferred to his account.
Snooping scandal
It may be noted that Mr. Sharma was involved in ‘snoopgate’ in which a Bangalore-based woman architect was snooped upon by Gujarat police at the order of the then junior home minister Amit Shah at the best of one " saheb ."
In a series of taped telephonic conversations between Mr. Shah and Gujarat cadre IPS G.L. Singhal, Mr. Shah was reportedly heard asking Mr. Singhal to arrange surveillance on the woman and provide real time details of her movements during her visit to Gujarat. She was originally from Bhuj (Kutch) and had family relations with Mr. Sharma when he was collector there.
Along with the architect, the police had also mounted intrusive surveillance on Mr. Sharma prior to his arrest in 2009.
