The Enforcement Directorate is investigating the officer in connection with a money laundering case.
New Delhi:
The assets worth more than 27 million rupees of former Chhattisgarh-based IAS officer Babulal Agrawal have been attached by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the central investigative agency said on Saturday.
The agency is investigating Agrawal, his family members and others in connection with a money laundering case linked to charges of alleged corruption and disproportionate assets.
“Assets seized include plant and machinery, bank account balances and real estate of Babulal Agarwal and his relatives,” the ED said in a statement.
The total value of the attached properties is 27.86 million rupees, he said.
Agrawal, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from 1988, was arrested by the agency from his residence in the state capital Raipur on November 9 and is in judicial custody until December 5.
He has served as chief secretary in the Chhattisgarh government and has been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) also in the past on corruption charges.
Agrawal was suspended by the state government after the CBI arrested him.
It was alleged that Agrawal wanted to “fix” the CBI investigations against him that were recorded in 2010 when he was secretary of health in the state government.
When the DE arrested him earlier this month, he said the action was taken against Agrawal for “laundering the profits generated by criminal offenses through shell companies and integrating them into the business of his relatives.”
The ED had said that its criminal case filed against Agrawal, its Chartered Accountant (CA) Sunil Agrawal and others was filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after studying a 2010 FIR from the Chhattisgarh anti-corruption office and the CBI.
Plant and machinery worth Rs 26.16 crore, Rs 20.43 lakh held in 291 bank accounts, a residential plot worth Rs 39.52 lakh in the name of a company, Xpress Mining Pvt Ltd, which is an entity owned by members of the family of Babulal Agrawal and operated by them. and Rs 15 lakh cash recovered during TI searches are among the provisionally attached assets.
The attached assets also include Rs 4.75 lakh held in the bank account of a company called Capstone and a residential plot worth Rs 10.25 lakh in the name of a company identified as Shri Ram Vihar (both companies owned and operated by family members of the former IAS Officer), and Rs 39.81 lakh in cash and two kgs of gold recovered by the CBI when it was raided.
The case of alleged corruption and disproportionate assets against the former bureaucrat first came to light after the Income Tax (TI) department raided it in February 2010.
The ED had said that it was found in the investigation that Babulal Agrawal “played an active role in dividing the bidding contracts related to the World Bank-aided malaria control program and awarding them to some non-existent entities and thus , causing losses to the treasury and pecuniary benefit to himself. “
The ED has also alleged that the former bureaucrat, in collusion with his CA Sunil Agrawal, his brother Ashok Agrawal and Pawan Agrawal, opened “more than 400 bank accounts in the names of credulous villagers from Kharora and its nearby villages and cash at the rate approximately 46 million rupees were deposited. “
This cash, the ED alleged, was “laundered” through shell or shell companies opened by the Agrawal CA and other entities, which was eventually parked in a company identified as Prime Ispat Ltd, Raipur, as an equity investment.
The ED has previously attached properties in the amount of Rs 36.09 crore which includes assets of Prime Ispat Ltd, Raipur and the properties of the former IAS.
Sunil Agrawal was also arrested by the Emergency Department in this case previously.
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