Rooms, almirahs sealed at Koda home

Thu, Nov 5 06:11 AM

In yet another setback for Madhu Koda, Income Tax officials on Wednesday sealed some rooms and almirahs in the former Jharkhand chief minister and MP's official residence in Ranchi. Koda and his associates are facing charges of money laundering, hawala transactions and illegal investments abroad.

"We have clamped a prohibitory order on the use of some of the residence's almirahs and rooms," I-T's Additional Director(Investigation) Ajit Srivastava, who is supervising the case, told The Indian Express.

"We are being treated like dirt," said Koda's wife Geeta at Apollo Hospital, where the former CM was admitted after he complained of dizziness and nausea on Tuesday.

On Wednesday evening, Koda was shifted from the ICU to the general ward. The hospital's superintendent Dr P S D Sinha said Koda had not made any further complaints though his blood pressure was slightly high.

The Enforcement Directorate, which had filed an FIR under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against Koda and his associates on October 9, had written to the Apollo management to furnish his medical certificate and also directed it not to release Koda without informing the ED. "We are going to abide by the ED's directives," said Dr Sinha.

The ED had earlier served notices on Koda and eight of his associates, including Sanjay Choudhary, Vinod Sinha and three former ministers — Kamlesh Singh, Bhanu Pratap Shahi and Bandhu Tirkey — asking them to appear before it in New Delhi.

In Ranchi, ED and IT investigators have started studying the documents, CDs, laptops and pen drives recovered during the searches.

A preliminary inquiry had revealed that Koda had gone to Bangkok and Dubai with Sinha and Choudhary without taking permission from the Union Home Ministry and the trio had allegedly made hawala transactions and investments worth more than Rs 2,000 crore.

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