Enforcement Directorate
AHMEDABAD: ED Friday arrested IAS officer Rajendrakumar Patel from Gandhinagar in connection with a recently busted bribery-linked money laundering case in the Surendranagar district collector office, and produced him before a PMLA court in Ahmedabad.ED sought 10 days of custodial interrogation to probe information that the commission amount for granting approvals for change of land use from agricultural to non-agricultural was fixed, and that the accused amassed over Rs 10 crore. Judge K M Sojitra ordered Patel be sent to ED remand till Jan 7.In its remand application, ED quoted statements of co-accused in Surendranagar district collectorate’s racket of fixed bribe for speedy approvals of applications for land use change to assert that collector Rajendrakumar Patel used to receive 50% share of bribe collected while the rest was shared among other officers. The ED quoted another accused stating that Patel’s PA used to collect bribe money on his behalf and later handed it over to him.From ‘hisaab sheet’ of bribe money prepared by accused, ED said it traced 800 applications for NA permissions, from which the accused received a bribe amount of Rs 10 crore.
