The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday began raids on 2011-batch Jharkhand cadre IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan. He was deputy commissioner of Ranchi when a lease for stone mining in the district’s Angara block was granted to chief minister Hemant Soren. The Jharkhand High Court had issued a notice to Soren and sought a reply from the government on a PIL accusing the CM who allegedly obtained a lease of 0.88 acres in Angara and a letter of intent was issued by Ranchi’s district mining office on June 16, 2021.
According to sources, raids are being conducted at 22 places linked to IAS officer Chhavi Ranjan, his parents’ house in Jamshedpur, associates of Jagatbandhu Tea Estate, and others.
Ranjan is currently posted as director in the social welfare department.
According to highly placed sources in ED, other than Ranjan, raids are also being conducted at the premises of circle officers and land dealers. The places where the agency’s teams have been deputed include Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Simdega, Hazaribagh, Kolkata, and Gopalganj. The squads have also reached some land brokers in Hindpiri.
According to the sources, ED officials are probing two places in West Bengal and one in Bihar. Locations in Ranchi and Jamshedpur as well as other places in Jharkhand are also being searched.
Chhavi Ranjan was on ED’s radar for a long time
If sources are to be believed, the ED was preparing for this action for a long time. The officers, including IAS Chhavi Ranjan, are accused of buying and selling land violating the rules.
Investigation already going on in matter of land occupation
The ED is already probing the sale and purchase of land occupied by the Indian Army. Businessman Vishnu Agarwal has already been questioned. Former deputy commissioner of Ranchi and IAS Chhavi Ranjan was on the ED’s radar in this matter. He is accused of having links with the sale and purchase of land. The ED was probing the roles of Kolkata-based businessmen Pradeep Bagchi and Dilip Ghosh, and jailed Amit Agarwal and Vishnu Agarwal in the sale and purchase of 4.55 acres of land occupied by the Army in Bariatu.
Past allegations on the officer
In 2016, the then chief minister of Jharkhand, Raghubar Das, allowed the prosecution of Chhavii Ranjan posted as municipal commissioner in Dhanbad for his alleged involvement in cutting trees and stacking them at his government residence as Koderma district collector in 2015. He was accused of felling one sesame and five teak trees without the permission of any authority.
In 2021, Ranjan was found misusing his judicial powers in an inquiry conducted by the Chota Nagpur divisional commissioner into the mutation of 7.16 acres of land in the Helal area. It was alleged that the DC had several legal provisions when he heard the petition filed by one Vinod Singh after 15 months, well beyond the stipulated time limit of sixty days. Ranjan allegedly took decisions in favour of Ravi Bhatia and Shtam Singh in the mutation.
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