Raj IAS officer arrested for running mining racket

Senior IAS officer Ashok Singhvi, who is the Principal Secretary (Mines) in Northern Indian state of Rajasthan, was arrested in the wee hours <g data-gr-id="54">of of</g> Thursday by the state <g data-gr-id="55">Anti Corruption</g> Bureau in the sixth arrest in a bribery case involving clearance for reopening of a closed mine.

Singhvi, a 1983 batch IAS officer who is also the Chairman of Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Ltd, Udaipur, was first detained here on Wednesday evening after five persons including two senior officers of his department were arrested in connection with the case in Udaipur and Bhilwara 

on Wednesday.

“IAS officer Ashok Singhvi was arrested at 3 AM. A search operation was launched at his residence at hospital road in Jaipur last evening and list of seizure is being prepared,” IG-ACB Dinesh MN said.

Singhvi was later remanded to five-day police custody along with and seven others, including two senior officials of his department, in connection with <g data-gr-id="44">case</g> of alleged graft against them.

A team of ACB conducted <g data-gr-id="32">preliminary</g> interrogation of Singhvi at his residence here on Wednesday night and took him to the ACB office later where he was arrested.

The total seizure of money in this case on Wednesday was Rs 4.28 crore and it included cash and money deposited in bank accounts, ACB officials said. The details of seizure at Singhvi’s house have not been disclosed so far.

A sum of Rs. 2.55 crore out of the total seizure was to be allegedly delivered to Singhvi and other officers, according to ACB officials. Before his arrest, the ACB conducted three raids in Udaipur and Bhilwara on Wednesday.

The alleged bribe amount of Rs. 2.55 crore was allegedly being taken from a Chittorgarh-based mines owner Sher Khan for securing permission to restart operations in his mines, which were closed by the mines department, DG-ACB Navdeep Singh said. The department had cancelled <g data-gr-id="40">lease</g> of Khan’s six mines.

“Khan did not complain about the demand of bribery to ACB and we conducted the operation on the basis of our own information,” he said. Meanwhile, the Rajasthan government suspended the accused IAS officer Ashok Singhvi and two other officers of the mines department.