Jailed IAS Hans took Rs 1 cr to settle consumer case when he was pvt secy to Ram Vilas—ED charge sheet
The NCDRC functions under the Department of Consumer Affairs of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. Paswan was holding the portfolio in the first Modi government between 2014 and 2019.
The agency has alleged Hans used his influence as Paswan's PS to help the promoters of the Mumbai-based real estate firm RNA Group as part of a deal facilitated by his IIT friend Vipul Bansal, who was an employee of the company.
New Delhi: Jailed IAS officer Sanjeev Hans, once a top civil servant in Bihar, collected Rs 1 crore bribe from a Mumbai-based realty firm to secure a favourable settlement from the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) when he was private secretary to then nodal minister late Ram Vilas Paswan, the Enforcement Directorate has alleged in a prosecution complaint.
Hans, an IAS officer of the 1997 batch from the Bihar cadre, was appointed Paswan's PS on 3 July 2014 and he remained in the post till 30 May 2019.
A prosecution complaint is a charge sheet filed against accused arrested by the ED under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
The agency had filed the prosecution complaint against Hans, his batchmate Bansal, business partner and former RJD MLA Ghulab Yadav and other aides of Hans in December 2014. A special PMLA court in Patna took cognisance of the prosecution complaint last month.
Hans was arrested in October last year on the charges of amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income and allegedly recouping kickbacks from the companies favoured in contracts through his friends and batchmates.
ThePrint reported in December that the ED estimated Hans had amassed assets around Rs 100 crore, including around Rs 60 crore from an electrical infrastructure firm, which inked a Rs 3,300-crore contract with the Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited when he was heading the state-owned firm between July 2020 to August 2024.
Advocate Changez Khan, partner at Diwan Associates, the law firm representing Hans in court, called the ED's investigation 'a web of falsehood riddled with ulterior motives, woven from a frivolous and fabricated complaint'.
'It appears that the Directorate of Enforcement, fully aware that it lacks any substantive case against Mr Hans, is instead resorting to creating a false narrative in an attempt to malign his character and reputation. Despite these malicious efforts, Mr Hans, a law-abiding citizen, continues to place his unwavering faith in the justice delivery system of our country. He remains confident that the truth will prevail and is optimistic that he will soon be exonerated of all false allegations,' Khan said in a statement to ThePrint.
'Modus operandi'
Nearly a month after recording an ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report), the ED arrested Hans on 18 October last year and filed a prosecution complaint on 16 December.
The complaint, a copy of which ThePrint has now seen, describes in detail the modus operandi allegedly devised by Hans to acquire bribes and immovable assets and their recoupment through his aides and business partners such as Ghulab Yadav.
In an allegation specific to the RNA Group's case before the NCDRC, the probe agency has relied on the statement of Bansal, Hans's batchmate from IIT-Delhi and the alleged middleman between the officer and the promoters of the firm.
According to the complaint, RNA Corp faced several financial challenges such as halted projects and missed repayment of bank loans following the death of the chairman Anil Agarwal. As the situation worsened, customers stopped paying their pending payments leading to defaults on the bank loans.
The firm's efforts to raise funds from various real estate groups to settle bank loans also remained unsuccessful, Bansal allegedly revealed to the ED in a statement under section 50 of the PMLA.
The problem compounded when a case was filed against the firm around 2018 in the NCDRC, and Saranga Agarwal, the wife of chairman, was summoned for non-compliance with the bench's orders.
Bansal, who was on the payroll of the firm, allegedly facilitated a meeting between Hans and Anubhav Agarwal, the promoter of the firm to negotiate a favourable outcome and prevent his mother's arrest, according to the ED charge sheet.
Bansal further allegedly revealed that Hans arranged two separate dates from the NCDRC bench for RNA Corp for compliance of the bench's order and cancellation of Saranga Agarwal's arrest. 'Therefore, for arranging two dates and non-arrest of Saranga Agarwal, the total amount of nearly Rs. 1 crore had been paid to Sanjeev Hans,' Bansal was quoted as having said in his statement mentioned in the prosecution complaint.
The alleged bribe, the agency claimed, was paid through one acquaintance of Hans, named Shadad Khan, whose number was provided by Hans himself to Bansal, who further passed on to Agarwal for payment.
Hans has been suspended and he is currently under judicial custody in Patna's Beur jail while Bansal is out on bail on medical grounds. The ED has so far arrested 13 accused and filed three prosecution complaints against 33 total accused.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also read: Arrested Bihar IAS Sanjeev Hans 'accumulated Rs 100 cr assets, took bribe for contract'—ED chargesheet
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