RANCHI: The Jharkhand High Court on Friday rejected the bail application filed by former minister Alamgir Alam, in a money laundering case linked to a tender-commission scam in the state’s Rural Development Department.Alamgir Alam had approached Jharkhand HC after his bail plea was rejected by a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Ranchi.Arguments from both the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the defence were completed on June 26, after which the Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad-led court reserved its verdict.The seventy-year-old senior Congress leader representing Pakur was summoned by the ED after a cash haul of Rs 32 crore from the residence of his personal assistant Sanjeev Lal’s domestic help.Lal and his domestic help Jehangir Alam are also in jail after the ED arrested them following the recovery of Rs 35.23 crore from their premises on May 6, 2024. Later, on May 8, the ED sleuths entered the Rural Development Ministry office in Ranchi and searched the files and recovered Rs 1.75 lakh new currency notes and Rs 28,000 old Rs 500 notes from the official chamber of Minister Alamgir Alam’s Private Secretary Sanjeev Lal.Alamgir was arrested by the ED on May 15 after an intense interrogation session spanning over six hours under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.It also came to light, during the investigation, that the collection of commission went to influential people under the supervision of Sanjeev Lal. Money was collected in connivance with the syndicate of engineers even for managing tenders and collecting commission. A fixed percentage was given to high-ranking people in the government, after collecting it from the contractors.
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