Jaipur: Senior IAS officer Ashok Singhvi, who is the Principal Secretary (Mines) in Rajasthan, was arrested in the wee hours of Thursday by the state Anti Corruption 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 last evening after five persons including two senior officers of his department were arrested in connection with the case in Udaipur and Bhilwara yesterday.
"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 told PTI here.
A team of ACB conducted preliminary interrogation of Singhvi at his residence here last night and took him to the ACB office later where he was arrested.
The total seizure of money in this case yesterday 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 yesterday.
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 lease 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.
Khan allegedly sent Rs. 2.55 crore to his Chartered Accountant in Udaipur, which was to be allegedly handed over to mines department's middleman Sanjay Sethi, Singh said.
Sethi was allegedly supposed to deliver this money to Additional Director-Mines (AD-M) HQ- Udaipur Pankaj Gehlot and Principal Secretary- Mines Ashok Singhvi, he said.
Besides Gehlot, senior mining engineer P R Ameta, chartered accoutnant Shyam Singh Singhvi, Sanjay Sethi and one Rashid Khan were arrested yesterday afternoon and search operation at the house of Principal Secretary was launched in the evening.
Sher Khan was detained last night and will be arrested today, IG Dinesh MN said. Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee President Sachin Pilot demanded a probe into the bribery case by an outside independent agency.
"There appears to be a political protection to the officials of mines department including Singhvi and the ruling BJP government can 'rafa-dafa' (dispose) it," Pilot told reporters in Jaipur.
IG ACB Dinesh MN said mines owner, Sher Khan, and another man, Chintu, have also been arrested in connection with the case. He said bottles of liquor were also recovered from the house of IAS Ashok Singhvi in Jaipur and a case under Excise Act has been registered with local police station in Jaipur.
