Ranchi, April 30: The cash-for-vote case of the 2012 Rajya Sabha election has returned to haunt Sita Soren, Jama MLA and bahu of JMM's First Family, influential businessmen-turned-MP aspirants R.K. Agrawal and Pawan Kumar Dhoot and three others, this time in a money laundering case.
Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed an ECIR (equivalent to an FIR) against JMM's Sita, her father B.N. Manjhi, her close aide Rajendra Mandal, Agrawal, Dhoot and Dhoot's election agent S.K. Maheshwari.
An ED official said six persons had been named accused today under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
"Documents, witnesses and evidence collected by the CBI established a clear trail of money laundering. ED will pursue this case under PMLA. There is evidence against these six. Over a dozen MLAs of the previous state Assembly are under scanner," the ED official said.
This January, CBI Ranchi unit sent documents of this horse-trading case to the ED, saying the money laundering aspect needed a probe.
The CBI listed around 22 MLAs of the last Assembly (elected in 2009) who allegedly got money from Agrawal or Dhoot to vote in their favour.
The list includes Sita; Ajsu MLA Chandra Prakash Choudhary, currently a minister in the BJP-led Raghubar Das government; Chamra Linda, now a JMM MLA; and former legislator Bandhu Tirkey.
Also, the CBI furnished bank details of current Congress MLA Videsh Singh and former MLAs Umakant Rajak (Ajsu), Arun Mandal and Ramchandra Baitha (both BJP), Aquil Akhtar and Vishnu Prasad Bhaiya (JMM), Chandrika Mahtha and Nizamuddin Ansari (JVM), among others.
In 2012, Calcutta real estate developer Dhoot and Jamshedpur-based industrialist Agrawal were contesting the Rajya Sabha polls as Independents.
A week before the March 30 poll date, JVM chief Babulal Marandi told the Election Commission he feared some candidates were bribing MLAs. On the morning of polls, I-T and Ranchi police seized Rs 2.15 crore from an SUV belonging to a relative of Agrawal on Ranchi's outskirts, the cash allegedly meant for MLAs. EC countermanded the polls.
Thus began a long journey of probe for the CBI, who listed 125 witnesses, including Marandi and former chief minister and Sita's brother-in-law Hemant Soren.
Facing arrest since August 2013, Sita surrendered in February 2014 but got bail from Jharkhand High Court that September. The CBI arrested Agrawal on May 14, 2013, in Ranchi. On May 5, 2014, the Supreme Court gave him bail.
Dismissed
Jharkhand High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by former minister Baijnath Ram against former JMM Rajya Sabha MP K.D. Singh, paving the way for fresh polls to fill the vacant seat. Ram had accused Singh, now a TMC MP of Rajya Sabha from Bengal, of fudging information while filing his nomination.
