The Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached three land parcels currently worth ₹161.64 crore in connection with the Ranchi land scam case. The agency has also filed a supplementary chargesheet against the accused persons.
It is alleged that the properties, located in Chesire Home Road, Pugru and Siram, all in Ranchi, had been mutated fraudulently in favour of the land mafia in connivance with the officers of the Land Revenue Department.
The ED had initiated the money laundering probe in three land scam cases on the basis of multiple First Information Reports registered by the police in Jharkhand and West Bengal against accused Pradip Bagchi, Bishnu Kumar Agarwal, Bhanu Pratap Prasad and others under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The agency detected a huge racket being run by the mafia who would get the ownership of land parcels illegal changed in Jharkhand. “These criminal elements used to forge the legacy records in Kolkata and Ranchi. It is also revealed that ownership records of land have also been forged by the unscrupulous government officers to extend favours to the said land mafia,” said the agency on Friday.
Subsequently, on the basis of forged land records, such land parcels were sold to other persons. The ED had earlier carried out 41 searches and five surveys in this matter and seized various incriminating evidence, including forged seals of the Land Revenue Department, forged land deeds, records of distribution of proceeds of crime among themselves, photographs of the forged papers, and proofs that bribes were given to government officials.
Based on the findings, the agency had earlier attached three other land parcels worth ₹74.39 crore another land scam case. With the latest order, the total value asset attachment has now gone up to ₹236 crore.
Till date, 14 accused named Pradip Bagchi, Afshar Ali, Saddaam Hussain, Imtiaz Ahmed, Talha Khan, Faiyaaz Khan, Bhanu Pratap Prasad, former Ranchi Deputy Commissioner Chhavi Ranjan, an Indian Administrative Service official; Dilip Kumar Ghosh, Amit Kumar Agarwal, Bishnu Kumar Agarwal, Rajesh Rai, Bharat Prasad and Prem Prakash have been arrested. They are currently in judicial custody.
On June 12, the ED had filed the first prosecution complaint (chargesheet) in the land scam case.
