Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda was discharged from a Ranchi hospital on Sunday. He will be questioned by the Income Tax department in a money laundering case on Tuesday while the Enforcement Directorate summoned him to appear before it next Friday.
"Fresh Summons have been served on Koda to appear before the ED on November 13," a senior official of the Enforcement Directorate told PTI.
Ajit Shrivastav, Additional Director(Investigation), met Koda at his home shortly after he was discharged from the hospital.
"He (Koda) requested me to just allow him one day rest and said then we can start out investigation. We can start from day after tomorrow," Shrivastav said about future probe in the Rs 2,000 crore alleged Hawala and illegal investments case. The sealed room of Koda's house would also be opened during Koda's interrogation
A "prohibitory order" has also placed at Koda's residence, he added.
IT department sources said in New Delhi that Koda will be questioned on the "concealment of income and illegal investments found during their searches".
A wheel-chair bound Koda while leaving a Ranchi hospital after undergoing treatment for five days told reporters, "I am innocent. I don't have any connections with anybody."
According to sources, the Directorate served fresh summons to Koda as the IT department has communicated to the ED officials, after Koda's discharge, about its move to question the former chief minister.
The ED meanwhile brought Vikash Sinha, an associate of Koda, to the national capital for interrogation after he became the first person to be arrested in the case. "His(Vikash) interrogation has begun," sources said.
Vikash, has been brought from the Jharkhand capital to the ED's zonal office here, after a Ranchi local court gave the Directorate his custody for 10 days.
Authorities were also contemplating issuing arrest warrants against Koda's associates Binod Kumar Sinha, Sanjay Choudhary and three others in a day or two as they had not appeared before the investigating agency on November six.
An IT official said "several teams are working in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Jamshedpur and other places to gather evidence and stitch them together."
The task would take time as documents of mines dated back to 2004 when Koda was the mines minister under Arjun Munda government, he said.
The agencies have unearthed hawala and illegal investments of Rs 2000 crore after they launched raids on 76 premises across the country on October 31.
In a fresh discovery, IT officials came to know about transfer of Rs 168 crore in a bank by a non-existant company, the official said.
The IT, he added, had requested the ED to move the appropriate authorities to get all the e-mails exchanged during the last three years in connection with the illegal investments and hawala transactions.
Earlier in the day, Koda was discharged from a city hospital after the doctors declared him medically fit. He got himself admitted to the hospital following stomach ache. PTI
