In a significant development, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted raids on Congress leader and former Uttarakhand minister Harak Singh Rawat and his associates as part of a money laundering probe. The agency revealed that it seized both Indian and foreign currency totalling around Rs 1.20 crore, along with gold and a substantial number of documents. However, the specific details of the recovered items were not disclosed in the official statement.
The raids, initiated on Wednesday, covered a total of 17 locations spread across Uttarakhand, Delhi, and Haryana. The investigation primarily focused on individuals linked to Rawat, including Birendra Singh Kandari, termed as a close associate, as well as former Indian Forest Service (IFoS) officer Kishan Chand and former forest range officer Brij Bihari Sharma.
Who is Harak Singh Rawat?
63-year-old Rawat is a former forest minister of the state. He had quit the BJP ahead of the 2022 Uttarakhand assembly polls and joined the Congress party. The ED said its investigation against these people stems from two different FIRs registered in the state. The first is based on a Uttarakhand Police FIR against Kandari and others.
Kandari, a close associate of Rawat, and Narendra Kumar Walia hatched a "criminal conspiracy" with Rawat and got registered two powers of attorney for land, for which a court had cancelled the sale deed, the agency alleged.
They illegally sold this land, on which the Doon Institute of Medical Science, Dehradun was constructed under Shrimati Poorna Devi Memorial Trust, to Rawat's wife Deepti Rawat and one Laxmi Singh, it said.
The second instance stems from an FIR registered by the vigilance department of the state government against Sharma, Chand and others under various sections of the IPC, Forest Conservation Act, Wild Life (Protection) Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
What did ED claim?
Kishan Chand, the then divisional forest officer (DFO) and Sharma, the forest ranger of that time, in a criminal conspiracy with other bureaucrats and Rawat, managed to publish a tender of a higher amount than the authorised financial powers and was not as per the rules/guidelines of the state government, the ED claimed.
They also "fabricated" documents and "misused" the funds under the head of Tiger Conservation Foundation and Campa head and caused a wrongful loss worth crores of rupees to the Uttarakhand government, it said. They are also alleged to have illegally cut more than 6,000 trees against the authorisation of 163 trees, the ED said.
Chand was suspended along with Sharma for alleged irregularities in the forest department. Chand was arrested in Delhi in December 2022 and in April 2023 he got a conditional bail from the high court. Cash of about Rs 1.10 crore, foreign currency valued at Rs 10 lakh and 1.3 kgs gold valued at about Rs 80 lakh were seized apart from some bank lockers, digital devices and voluminous documents pertaining to immovable properties, the ED added.
(With PTI inputs)
ALSO READ: ED raids premises linked to Congress leader Harak Singh Rawat in Uttarakhand, Delhi-NCR
