Chhattisgarh: ML Pandey, a Social Welfare Department Retired Employee filed a petition against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the multi-crore scam of the State Department. A single bench of Justice NK Vyas would do the final hearing on September 16.
Pandey was accused of possessing disproportionate assets. As per the information revealed, in February 2017, ACB and EOW raided the house of the former Social welfare department employee and discovered the illegal possessions and gargantuan transactions of the officer. Following which a money laundering case was registered against and over a period of time, the case was handed over to ED. Authorities from ED had recently summoned Pandey and his family members for questioning in the Chhattisgarh High Court. However, the retired officer challenged the summon in the HC today.
For the unversed, the above scam came to light when Advocate Devarshi Thakur, on behalf of Kundan Singh Thakur a resident of Raipur, had filed public interest litigation in the HC a few years ago. As per the PIL, 6 public officers of the State Welfare Department called, Alok Shukla, Vivek Dhand, MK Raut, Sunil Kujur, BL Agrawal and PP Soti, Satish Pandey, Rajesh Tiwari, Harman Khalko, ML Pandey and Pankaj Verma had established illegal institutions in the name of State Resource Centre for Disabled which brought forth as a scam of Rs 1000 crore. An FIR was registered against the accused. Later retired IAS officers MK Raut and Vivek Dhand had challenged the decision of the HC in SC after which the apex court stayed the former courts’ orders.
