Odisha HC relief for miners in money laundering case

In a temporary relief for miners like Indrani Patnaik and mineral raising contractor Thriveni Earthmovers, the Odisha High Court (HC) today held that the bank accounts frozen by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) can be activated again on furnishing bank guarantee.

The fixed deposits cannot be liquidated by the petitioners and they need to be furnished as bank guarantee, the court said. The HC also dissuaded ED to take any stringent action against the petitioners. The next hearing will be taken up after three months. ED officials could not be reached for comments on the HC direction. Both Indrani Patnaik and Thriveni Earthmovers had moved the Odisha HC after the ED conducted raids on them and froze their bank accounts. The ED had conducted simultaneous raids on July 9 in 15 places across three states in connection with its money laundering probe in illegal mining of iron ore. The Kolkata zonal headquarter of the investigative agency carried out the raids in three states — Odisha, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

The ED team raided the homes and offices of two miners- Serajuddin Mines (Keonjhar) and Indrani Patnaik and that of mine developer Thriveni Earthmovers Ltd and Champua MLA Sanatan Mahakud who runs a mineral transport agency. Sources said ED has frozen bank accounts with deposits worth Rs 700 crore. The ED Kolkata office took cognisance of the Justice (retd) M B Shah committee report and also the criminal complaints filed by Odisha Vigilance department in these cases of illegal mining before registering its own FIR.

The Odisha Vigilance department had registered an FIR against these people and their firms in 2012 and submitted a charge sheet against them the next year in the scam pegged at about Rs 2,000 crore.

ED has registered a total of three FIRs to probe money laundering instances in illegal iron-ore mining scam in eastern states, the most prominent one being the Uliburu mining case of Odisha.

In May this year, the ED issued orders attaching assets worth Rs 400 crore of three firms, their owners and associates in the Uliburu scam.

The agency had attached a number of immovable and movable assets of the accused firms in the case such as Deepak Steel, Deepak Steel and Power and Sneh Pushp and their directors, Deepak Kumar, Champak Gupta and Haricharan Gupta and a few others.