Fresh trouble for Koda: Aide turns approver

NEW DELHI: One of the key accused in the Koda scam, Mumbai-based bullion trader Manoj Punamia, is learnt to have agreed to provide Enforcement Directorate (ED) all the relevant details relating to the investigation in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case registered against some former Jharkhand ministers, including ex-CM Madhu Koda and other politicians.
Officials are hopeful that Punamia would turn an approver in the case so that the main accused in the case are held accountable for looting the exchequer. Awarding mining deals and government contracts to select businessmen are some of the allegations made against politicians in the Koda case.
Punamia has been grilled for two days — Thursday and Friday last — at the ED’s Delhi zonal office. Sources said he will be further questioned for the next 10 days to record his statements on various transactions carried out by him in the past five years.
Already, authorities have bank details and income tax records of the bullion trader and his other associates. Punamia is believed to have provided documentary evidences to authorities in support of his claims.
Another key accused in the case Sanjay Choudhary, who had been on the board of directors along with Punamia in companies charged under PMLA, is still on the run and believed to be based in Dubai. Another Koda associate Binod Sinha who has an arrest warrant issued against him is also on the run.
Last October, after registering cases under PMLA, the ED and Income Tax investigation had carried out nationwide searches in places in Jharkhand and Bihar besides Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi and unearthed the alleged investment details of politicians and their associates running into hundreds of crores.
Koda happens to be the country’s first former CM who has been booked under the PMLA along with three of his ex-cabinet colleagues Bhanu Pratap Singh, Bandhu Tirki and Kamlesh Singh. Again on February 16, the I-T officials had carried out second round of raids across the country on Koda and associates. This time, the I-T department had turned its focus on corrupt babus and hawala operators with at least a dozen top bureaucrats put under the scanner in Jharkhand. The officials included a former mining secretary, two ex-chairmen of the state electricity board and eight bureaucrats of the state civil services. Chief minister Shibu Soren’s personal secretary Manohar Lal was also covered in the raids.
In February, officials are learnt to have hit a ‘jackpot’ during their raids on Pune-based businessman Ajay Bafna, who was under surveillance since October last year when the first indication of his dealings with Sanjay Chaudhary, close associate of Madhu Koda, surfaced.