The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has registered a money laundering case in connection with the illegal mining in Uttar Pradesh, where the CBI recently registered a regular FIR and said it was probing the role of former State Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and some bureaucrats.

The ED has filed the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and pressed charges against those booked by the CBI including IAS officer B Chandrakala.

 The ED will probe the case from money laundering angle and will look into the money trail as also the assets generated out of the proceeds of crime.

The CBI had conducted searches at 14 locations early this month in connection with its FIR against 11 persons, including Chandrakala, Samajwadi Party MLC Ramesh Kumar Mishra and Sanjay Dixit (who unsuccessfully contested the 2017 assembly election on a BSP ticket), to probe alleged illegal mining of minor minerals in Hamirpur district during 2012-16. Sand and  gravels constitute minor minerals.

 “The role of the then mining ministers concerned during the relevant period may be looked into during the course of investigation of the case,” reads the CBI FIR.

 Akhilesh Yadav was the Chief Minister of the State between 2012 and 2017 and  held the mining portfolio during 2012-13. Akhilesh was succeeded by Gayatri Prajapati, who took charge as mining minister in 2013 and was arrested in 2017 following a complaint of rape by a woman residing in Chitrakoot.

 Others named as accused in the CBI FIR included Dinesh Kumar Mishra, brother of SP MLC Ramesh Mishra, Ram Ashrey Prajapati (then mining clerk), Ambika Tiwari; Sanjay Dixit’s father Satyadev Dixit,  Ram Avtar Singh (retired mining clerk), Karan Singh (lease holder), and Adil Khan, the illegal excavation contractor.        

The CBI FIR had received widespread criticism from the Opposition that alleged that  it was part of a witch hunt against the Opposition. The Allahabad high court had actually ordered investigation into the mining scam over two years back.  The CBI has registered three cases, including the one against Chandrakala