Senior IAS officer Ashok Singhvi, who is the Principal Secretary (Mines) in Rajasthan, was arrested in the wee hours of Thursday by the State Anti Corruption Bureau in the eighth arrest in a bribery case involving clearance for reopening of six closed mines of a miner. Mr. Singhvi was suspended late in the evening.
Giving details of fresh arrests, IG ACB Dinesh M.N. said 177 bottles of expensive liquor of 104 brands were also recovered from Mr. Singhvi’s house in a raid conducted on Wednesday by ACB sleuths.
A case under Excise Act has also been registered against Mr. Singhvi with Ashok Nagar police station, he added.
Mr. Singhvi, a 1983 batch IAS officer who is also the Chairman of Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Ltd, Udaipur, was first detained here on Wednesday evening after five persons including two senior officers of his department were arrested in connection with the case in Udaipur and Bhilwara on Wednesday.
“IAS officer Ashok Singhvi was arrested at 3 a.m. A search operation was launched at his residence at hospital road in Jaipur on Wednesday evening and list of seizure is being prepared,” Mr. Dinesh said here. Mr. Singhvi was arrested under the Prevention of Corruption Act, he said.
He said Sher Khan, a Chittorgarh-based mines owner, and another man, Chintu, have also been arrested in the case.
A Udaipur court remanded all the arrested eight persons to five-day police custoday.
A team of ACB conducted preliminary interrogation of Mr. Singhvi at his residence here on Wednesday night and took him to the ACB office later where he was arrested.
The total seizure of money in this case on Wednesday was Rs. 4.28 crore and it included cash and money deposited in bank accounts, ACB officials said. The details of seizure at Mr. Singhvi’s house have not been disclosed so far.
A sum of Rs. 2.55 crore out of the total seizure was to be allegedly delivered to Mr. Singhvi and other officers, according to ACB officials.
Before his arrest, the ACB conducted three raids in Udaipur and Bhilwara on Wednesday.
The alleged bribe amount of Rs. 2.55 crore was allegedly being taken from Khan for securing permission to restart operations in his mines, which were closed by the mines department, DG-ACB Navdeep Singh said. The department had cancelled lease of Khan’s six mines.
“Khan did not complain about the demand of bribery to ACB and we conducted the operation on the basis of our own information,” he said.
Khan allegedly sent Rs. 2.55 crore to his chartered accountant in Udaipur which was to be allegedly handed over to mines department’s middleman Sanjay Sethi, Mr. Singh said.
Sethi was allegedly supposed to deliver this money to Additional Director - Mines (AD-M) HQ - Udaipur Pankaj Gehlot and Principal Secretary - Mines Ashok Singhvi, he said.
Besides Gehlot, senior mining engineer P. R. Ameta, chartered accountant Shyam Singh Singhvi, Sanjay Sethi and one Rashid Khan were arrested.
Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot demanded a probe into the bribery case by an outside independent agency.
“There appears to be a political protection to the officials of mines department including Mr. Singhvi and the ruling BJP government can ‘rafa-dafa’ (dispose) it,” Mr. Pilot told reporters in Jaipur. - PTI
