CDRs of ED official, ex-MCA Jt Secy under lens

Raids in journalist Upendra Rai case yield surprises

New Delhi: Investigations into the alleged money-laundering case against journalist Upendra Rai has taken the probe agencies by surprise as they claimed to have recovered call data records of a senior ED official, an IAS officer earlier posted in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, besides confidential communication between Singapore-based Indian High Commission and a former ED chief, officials said here.

The recoveries also included income tax assessment orders of various companies and Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) of nearly 140 companies generated by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) after a joint CBI-ED searches on Rai and his associates.

The probe agencies, along with the Income Tax Department, conducted fresh searches in Gurgaon, Kolkata and Mumbai over the week against many people, including a few tax department officials, on the basis of these disclosures.

The agencies seized, during the first round of searches at the premises of Rai and his associates, a confidential communication between the Indian High Commission in Singapore and former ED Director Rajan Katoch in connection with a case related to industrialist Naveen Jindal, the officials said.

A letter written by Jindal to Katoch in 2015 has also been recovered from the cache, apart from a secret inquiry report of foreign assets and a note shared by a Special Director of the ED in the backdrop of the Singaporean FIU taking umbrage on the leakage of its shared information in the Indian media.

The officials told PTI that documents pertaining to four IT assessment orders against Mumbai-based companies have been recovered from the premises of Sanjay Snehi, an associate of Rai who is being probed in the case.

Among other seizures made from the premises of Snehi are CDRs of a senior Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer investigating the Supreme Court monitored Aircel-Maxis case, that of an IAS officer who served as a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, of a journalist owning a Hindi news portal and those of Rai's wife Rachna, among others.

All of these are suspected to have been sourced by Rai some years back, a senior official said.

The searches had more surprise for the officials when the sleuths recovered a confidential note of 2010 of an ex-ED Additional Director, now a senior officer in the Delhi Police, to the then CBI Director "complaining" about the activities of Rai.

"The highly classified letter was recovered from a man who himself is the subject of discussion and question in the note.

A full enquiry is on to find as to how this document was leaked to Rai," the official said.

Documents related to a disproportionate assets case charge-sheet filed by the CBI against former Noida Chief Engineer Yadav Singh have also been seized by the probe agencies after raids on Rai and his associates Snehi, Rahul Sharma and others early this month.

Among the other sensitive documents in raids against Rai is a 2015 ED complaint filed against meat exporter Moin Qureshi and others. Qureshi is being probed by the ED, the IT department and the CBI for alleged tax evasion and money laundering after his purported dubious links with former CBI Director A P Singh came to the fore.

A total of 140 STRs, generated by the Financial Intelligence Unit to check dubious, black money and terror-financing linked transactions in the country's economic channels, have also been seized from a pen drive found at Rai's premises as part of these recoveries.