ED files chargesheet against ex-MP transport department constable

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday said it has filed a chargesheet against a former Madhya Pradesh state transport department constable Saurabh Sharma and some others as part of a money laundering investigation against them.

The federal probe agency said in a statement that the prosecution complaint (chargesheet) was filed on Tuesday before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Bhopal which took cognisance on the same day.

The ED said it has "prayed for the confiscation of the proceeds of crime amounting to the tune of Rs 108.25 crore" in the chargesheet.

The agency had provisionally attached assets worth Rs 92.07 crore while it had seized Rs 16.18 crore in cash.

It had earlier said that cash and gold worth about Rs 52 crore seized from an abandoned SUV in Madhya Pradesh last year "belonged" to Sharma.

"In this case, Income-Tax Department had seized cash and gold from a Innova vehicle belonging to Chetan Singh Gaur. ED investigation has revealed that said cash and gold seized from Innova Car belonged to Saurabh Sharma only," the federal probe agency said in a statement issued last month.

The vehicle was registered in the name of Gaur and he is stated to be linked to Sharma.

Sharma's legal representative could not be contacted for a comment on the charges made by the ED against his client, who is currently lodged in the Bhopal Central Jail under judicial custody.

The ED, I-T department and the Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta Police are the three agencies probing Sharma and the recoveries from the vehicle on December 20 last year from an area in Bhopal.

The case began with Lokayukta raiding Sharma first and recovered assets worth more than Rs 3 crore, including Rs 2.85 crore in cash, after it raided from the premises of Sharma in Bhopal.

The issue has been a political controversy in the central Indian state with the opposition Congress and the ruling BJP trading charges on rampant corruption in the transport department under their respective regimes.

The assets, worth Rs 92.07 crore, represent the "proceeds of crime" derived and obtained by Sharma in his name or in the name of his relatives, associates apart from firms, companies, society etc. "owned or controlled" by them, according to the ED.

Sharma, Gaur and a linked person Sharad Jaiswal were arrested in the case by the ED. The money laundering stems from the Lokayukta Police FIR.

As per the Lokayukta Police, Sharma got appointed as a constable in the state transport department on compassionate grounds in 2015 and took voluntary retirement in 2023. His father, a government doctor, died in 2015, as per the special police establishment of the MP government.

The Lokayukta also alleged that Sharma earned money through corrupt means, including setting up a school and hotel in the name of his mother, wife, sister-in-law and close associates Gaur and Sharad Jaiswal.