ED attaches 'bribe' cash seized from ex-rail min Pawan Bansal's nephew

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has attached cash worth Rs 89.68 lakh in a money laundering case involving the nephew of Congress leader and former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.

The ED said, in a statement, it has issued a provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to freeze the "bribe" money, which according to it was "proceeds of crime". The cash was allegedly seized by the CBI from the office of Bansal's nephew Vijay Singla in 2013 in a bribery and corruption case related to appointments at top positions in the railways.

The ED filed a separate criminal case based on CBI's FIR and charge sheet against Railway Board Member (Staff) Mahesh Kumar, Vijay Singla, Sandeep Goyal and seven others. The agency said CBI's probe found that Mahesh Kumar, a 1975 batch officer of Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers (IRSSE), was posted as General Manager, Western Railways and he wanted to get himself appointed as Member (Electrical), Railway Board instead of Member (Staff).

"For this, he was in touch with N Manjunath who was further in touch with Sandeep Goyal, a friend of Singla. Singla demanded Rs 10 crore through Sandeep Goyal from N Manjunath to get Mahesh Kumar posted as Member (Electrical)," the ED said, quoting the CBI probe. While delivering a token amount to Singla and Goyal, the CBI team raided Singla's office at Sector 28 in Chandigarh and seized Rs 89,68,000, it said. During that time, Bansal was the railway minister and his nephew Vijay Singla was allegedly caught red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 89,68,000.