New Delhi: Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said that it has arrested RJD MP Amarendra Dhari Singh on late Wednesday night in connection with the fertiliser scam under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Singh was produced before the Delhi PMLA Court and the probe agency has sought 14 days custody.
According to the sources, Singh has been booked under the PMLA in his capacity as the senior vice president of Jyoti Trading Corporation in Dubai.
The case pertains to an alleged fertiliser scam linked to the IFFCO and India Potash Limited (IPL), which supplies fertilisers at government subsidies.
The CBI had launched a corruption case last month, post which ED conducted searched at 12 places in Delhi, Mumbai and Haryana.
Elected to the Upper House in 2020, the RJD lawmaker was named in the CBI FIR based on two complaints forwarded by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers carrying identical allegations from MP Nishikant Dubey and Sudish Tripathi of Bareilly.
The ED case is based on a CBI FIR of May 17 in which the agency has booked IFFCO MD and CEO US Awasthi along with nine others, including his two sons, for alleged corruption and causing loss to the exchequer by importing fertiliser raw material at inflated prices from abroad.
It stated that IFFCO Managing Director US Awasthi and IPL Managing Director PS Gahlaut imported fertilisers at highly inflated rates from 2007 to 2014 as part of a "criminal conspiracy" to claim higher subsidies.
Both officials have been accused of receiving illegal commissions worth over Rs 685 crore, reportedly siphoned off outside India.
"They allegedly siphoned off the commission through a complex web of fake commercial transactions through multiple companies registered outside India (beneficially owned by the accused persons) to camouflage the fraudulent transactions as genuine", the probe agency alleged.(UNI)
