Properties of Singhal worth ₹82 cr attached

Ranchi: The adjudicating authority formed under PMLA Act has approved the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) decision to attach properties worth Rs 82.77 crore of suspended IAS officer Pooja Singhal in connection with the MGNREGA scam and money laundering.
The ED had provisionally attached Singhal’s assets, including Pulse Super Specialty Hospital, Pulse Diagnostic and Imaging Centre and two plots of land in Ranchi on December 1, 2022.
Confirming the development, ED source said it would decide on whether to take immediate possession of the hospital as it is a ‘productive unit’. “We can take the property on constructive possession, allowing the hospital to run but the profits would go to the government exchequer through the ED,” said one of the officials.
The ED had arrested Singhal on May 11, 2022 in connection with the MGNREGA scam. The central agency had on May 6, 2022 conducted a country-wide searches on premises related to Singhal and her associates and seized cash worth Rs 19.31 crore.
Earlier the central agency had been successful in proving money laundering charges against former minister Enos Ekka and the PMLA court had allowed attachment of property worth over Rs 150 crore in April, 2014. Apart from land parcels, the ED had seized one posh bungalow near airport in Hinu, flats in Hariom Tower Lalpur and Burdwan Compound. At present, the Hinu-bound posh bungalow is the zonal office of ED in Ranchi.