UP illegal mining case: ED summons accused IAS officer

LUCKNOW: Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued notices to IAS officer Abhay Singh along with other officers and clerks accused in illegal mining in Deoria and Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh, on Wednesday. Singh has also been summoned to the ED office till Friday.
On August 4, ED had registered a case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against former mining minister of Samajwadi Party, five IAS officers and 30 others on the basis of FIRs registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the mining scam in July.
ED officials said that notices to all those accused in the illegal mining in Deoria and Fatehpur districts and also named in CBI FIR have been served. They all will be asked to appear separately.
A public interest litigation (PIL) had blown the lid off the mining scam when the Allahabad high court had on July 28, 2016, directed CBI to investigate the anomalies.
In January, ED had filed a case against B Chandrakala in mining scam.
CBI short-listed seven districts — Shamli, Hamirpur, Fatehpur, Siddharthnagar, Deoria, Kaushambi and Saharanpur — and began probe on the approvals in September 2012. So far, CBI has registered five FIRs in Shamli, Hamirpur, Fatehpur, Kaushambhi, and Deoria in between June 2017 and July 2019 and booked 44 persons, including six IAS officers, a former minister and others.