The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Patna, carried out search operations at four locations linked to judge R.K. Mittal and other advocates in a money laundering case related to the alleged Patna Railway Claims Tribunal scam.
The ED, in an official statement, said that the searches were carried out in Patna, Nalanda and Mangaluru and arrested three advocates, Bidyanand Singh, Parmanand Sinha, and Vijay Kumar, on Wednesday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The ED also stated that they have sent to judicial custody after producing before the special PMLA court.
The ED initiated investigation based on the FIRs registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), Patna, regarding “mass scale” irregularity/criminality in the death claim cases filed, processed and decided by the Railway Claims Tribunal (RCT), Patna, against unknown public servants of Railway under various sections of Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
As per the FIRs, in the accidental death claim cases, only a part of the compensation amount, actually awarded to the claimants, was received by the claimants and major chunk was siphoned off by the conspirators.
The ED investigation revealed that Mr. Bidyanand and his team of lawyers dealt with around 900 cases where decrees/execution orders were issued by judge R.K. Mittal and approximately ₹50 crore compensation were awarded to the claimants.
It is revealed that Mr. Bidyanand and his team opened and operated the bank accounts of claimants without their knowledge and using their signatures and thumb impressions ransferred the claim amount received from the railways to their own accounts or withdrawn in cash.
Later, they gave some amount to the claimants as compensation.
The searches resulted in identification of assets acquired by the advocates and judge in their names and recovery of physical and digital records including signed blank bank cheques & signed blank papers by the claimants.
The ED asserted that further investigation is under progress.
Published – January 24, 2025 07:35 am IST
