Tainted former collector of Surendranagar withdraws bail plea

Ahmedabad: Former Surendranagar district collector Rajendrakumar Patel on Monday withdrew his bail application from the special PMLA court in connection with the money laundering charges levelled against him by the Enforcement Directorate. Patel's advocates submitted that since the ED filed a prosecution complaint in the case during the pendency of the bail plea, the application would have to study the case papers.
Therefore, the accused should be permitted to withdraw the bail plea, with liberty to reserve his right to file a fresh bail application. Special judge K M Sojitra permitted the withdrawal of the application.The ED arrested Patel in connection with a bribery racket allegedly run systematically in the collectorate for speedy processing of applications for change of land use. While seeking his remand, the ED quoted co-accused in the case, throwing light on how different officers used to get their shares of the bribe amounts.The ED cited arrested deputy mamlatdar and executive magistrate Chandrasinh Mori, saying that out of the bribe collected, 50% was taken by the collector, 10% was taken by himself, and the rest was distributed among other officers of the district collector's office, including 25% by residential additional collector R K Oza, 10% by mamlatdar Mayur Dave, and 5% by clerk Maryusinh Gohil.The ED alleged that Patel's personal assistant used to collect the bribe amount on his behalf and later handed it over to him.