A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta refused to intrude with the Jharkhand High Court order denying Jharkhand cadre IAS officer Puja Singhal’s bail.
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The Supreme Court on April 29 dismissed a plea of suspended Jharkhand cadre IAS officer Puja Singhal looking for bail in a money laundering matter, observing it’s an “extraordinary case”.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta refused to intrude with the Jharkhand High Court order denying her bail.
The high courtroom famous that out of 17 prosecution witnesses, 12 have been examined by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and hoped that the trial in the case is concluded expeditiously.
“You wait for some more time for bail. This is not a normal matter but an extraordinary case. There is something seriously wrong in this case. We are not inclined to entertain the instant petition. We hope the trial will be concluded expeditiously,” it noticed.
The bench, nevertheless, gave liberty to Ms. Singhal to revive her bail plea, if the trial is extended or is there some other change in circumstance.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, showing for the ED, opposed the bail plea and mentioned that out of the overall custody interval, she has spent most of the time in a hospital at Ranchi.
On February 10, 2023, the highest courtroom had granted Ms. Singhal interim bail for 2 months to allow her to take care of her ailing daughter.
Ms. Singhal has been in custody since May 11, 2022 after raids had been carried out at properties linked to her in reference to the money laundering case.
The case pertains to alleged corruption in the implementation of MGNREGA, the Centre’s flagship scheme for rural employment.
The ED has accused Ms. Singhal, a former state mines division secretary, of money laundering and mentioned its crew seized greater than ₹36 crore money linked to alleged unlawful mining as half of two separate money laundering investigations.
Apart from the 2000 batch IAS officer, her businessman husband, a chartered accountant related to the couple, and others had been additionally raided by the ED as half of the money laundering probe.
Ms. Singhal was suspended following her arrest.