Enforcement Directorate to seek custody of former-Uttar Pradesh chief engineer

THE ENFORCEMENT Directorate (ED) is set to move a special court in Lucknow on Saturday to seek custody of former UP chief engineer Yadav Singh. Singh is currently in judicial custody in connection with a case of money laundering registered by ED. The court had earlier asked the agency to interrogate him in jail itself. “He, however, has not cooperated. This is why we will request the court tomorrow to grant us his custody,” said an ED official. “The agency has collected solid evidence against Singh and needs to question him about his various financial dealings, including a string a companies allegedly floated in his family members’ names, through which alleged bribe money was routed,” the official added.

On February 27, when Singh was produced in court, he was assaulted by unidentified lawyers after his supporters got into a scuffle with mediapersons. The court had then sent him to 14 days’ judicial custody and allowed ED to question him.

Yadav Singh is the prime accused in a Rs 900-crore New Okhla Industrial Development Authority scam. The ED had filed a money laundering case against him on October 8, 2015. The agency had slapped money laundering charges in two separate cases against Singh, based on an FIR lodged by the CBI. The CBI had also filed a chargesheet.

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After an Allahabad High Court order, the CBI had registered two cases against Singh and his family members for alleged corruption and amassing assets disproportionate to known sources of income. Singh’s case came to the fore after the income-tax department carried out searches at the houses and offices of him and others on charges of tax evasion.

A scrutiny of ITRs and other records have revealed that during 2009-2014, the total likely savings of the family of Singh, then chief engineer, was approximately Rs 1.70 crore, while they possessed immovable property worth around Rs 3.60 crore, CBI had said.