The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday attached assets estimated at Rs. 94.67 lakh of a suspended Gujarat-cadre IAS official, Pradeep Sharma, in a money laundering case. The estimate of all the attachments in the case now stands at Rs. 1.22 crore.
The directorate arrested Mr. Sharma after the Supreme Court turned down his anticipatory bail application on July 29. The action has been taken in a case registered in 2012 for alleged violations under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The ED said the officer had sold government land at 25 per cent of the prevailing market rate to a Kutch-based textiles company, Welspun Group, purportedly causing a loss of about Rs.1.2 crore to the exchequer. The alleged offence took place when he was the Collector of Kutch in 2003-04.
Partnership for wifeThe agency alleges that in lieu of the favour, the company made Mr. Sharma’s wife a 30 per cent partner in one of its subsidiaries, Value Packaging.
This resulted in benefits of Rs.29.5 lakh.
In October 2014, the Anti-Corruption Bureau of Gujarat government arrested Mr. Sharma in the case. The 1984-batch official was suspended in 2010 after he was arrested by the police for alleged irregularities in land allotments to rehabilitate earthquake-hit victims in Bhuj in 2001.
