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Surendranagar bribery case: IAS officer Rajendra Patel sent to judicial custody

On January 6, the ACB, which had not taken any action in their FIR so far, formed a six-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the case.

2 min readRajkotJan 7, 2026 08:22 PM IST

Rajendrakumar Mahendra Patel (File photo)

Rajendrakumar Mahendra Patel — the 2015-batch IAS officer who had been remanded to Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) custody shortly after his January 2 arrest — was produced before the Special PMLA court in Ahmedabad on Wednesday and sent to judicial custody at Sabarmati Central Jail.

The former Surendranagar Collector, since being transferred to the General Administration Department (GAD) and deemed “under suspension” due to his remand order exceeding 48 hours, was on January 7 presented before the court in Ahmedabad by the Headquarters Investigation Unit (HIU-II) of the ED, after the five-day remand ended.

Patel’s defence lawyer CJ Gogda told The Indian Express the ED has not sought further remand, following which Patel was sent to judicial custody.

Patel had been booked in two cases — one by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) police station in Surendranagar, under the Prevention of Corruption Act, where he is alleged to have sought bribes in conjunction with other employees for “Change in Land Use” applications. He was then booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in an ECIR filed by the ED. Both cases were filed on December 23, 2025.

On January 6, the ACB, which had not taken any action in their FIR so far, formed a six-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the case.

Meanwhile, Patel’s defence team had earlier argued that his arrest by the ED was illegal and that the agency had not found an “unbroken chain of evidence against their client”.

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