IT to place final report before HC on 20th Jan

The Income Tax Dept. has told the Jharkhand High Court that a final report of the ongoing vigilance probe into a disproportionate assets case against former state CM Madhu Koda and some of his ex-cabinet members would be placed on 20th January next year.

Filing an affidavit in this regard, IT advocate Mukhtar Khan told the two-judge bench on Thursday, headed by Chief Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra, that it was not possible to place the report till the investigation was completed on 31^stDecember.

The affidavit was filed after the High Court had on 5^thNovember asked the IT to place a progress report of the vigilance probe in the background of the bench hearing a PIL filed by Durga Oraon pleading for a CBI probe into the former ministers' movable and immovable assets.

The PIL alleged that former ministers Bandhu Tirkey, Chandraprakash Choudhary, Kamlesh Singh, Enos Ekka and Harinarayan Rai had multiplied their wealth during their ministerial terms.

Later, Koda and his alleged aides Bindo Kumar Sinha and Sanjay Choudhary were made parties through interlocutory application in the DA case.

Ekka and Rai are in judicial custody at present after they surrendered before a special vigilance court in September in a separate case.

On 5^th October the vigilance department had filed a chargesheet against Ekka and Rai against whom Kumar Vinod filed a PIL with the vigilance court accusing them of amassing assets running into crores of rupees between April, 2005 and September, 2008.