A day after the Jharkhand cabinet approved guidelines on dealing with notices/summons issued by external investigating agencies, principal secretary of cabinet secretariat Vandana Dadel has written to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) seeking reasons for the summons issued to a state bureaucrat.

The letter written by Dadel, who is also the principal secretary to the chief minister, on Wednesday, seeks to know the reasons for the summons issued by the ED to deputy commissioner Sahibganj Ramniwas Yadav.

The ED on Saturday issued summons to chief minister Hemant Soren’s media adviser Abhishek Prasad alias Pintu and called him for questioning on January 16 in the illegal stone mining case while Yadav has been summoned on Thursday in the same case and an architect Vinod Singh, alleged by the ED to be close to the chief minister, has been summoned on January 15.

Till the filing of this report, Yadav had not attended the ED summons.

On January 3, the ED had raided the premises related to Yadav, Prasad and others and in a media release alleged that Rs 7.25 lakh cash was recovered from deputy commissioner Sahibganj’s hideout along with 21 cartridges and five shells.

The ED release claimed that the raids were related to illegal stone mining prevalent in the Sahibganj district. The proceeds of the crime amounted to more than Rs 1,000 crore.

Jharkhand cabinet had on Tuesday approved guidelines on dealing with external investigating agencies and made it mandatory for state officials to inform the “nodal head” or the head of the concerned department about the notices and not send records or documents directly to the agencies.

Incidentally, Soren had skipped the seventh summons of the ED on January 2 and
alleged the probe against him of being “baseless” and “biased” in connection with an alleged money laundering charge in a land scam case in Ranchi.

The cabinet note informing about the new standard operating procedures states that once the summons or the notices are sent, the department of cabinet secretariat and vigilance will obtain appropriate legal advice for follow-up action in the light of the facts presented. The department will then provide necessary cooperation to the investigating agency outside the state.

The cabinet note mentions that there have been instances when investigating agencies outside the state, without providing information to the competent authority of the state government, have sent summons/notices directly to the officials and asked them to appear before the investigating agency.

In many cases, government documents/records are also demanded by the investigating agency.