Kolkata: Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s assistant director Mukesh Kumar has taken charge of the money laundering cases being handled by the agencies in West Bengal.
He replaced his predecessor Mithilesh Kumar Mishra, who was removed from charge of investigation relating to any case being handled by ED, by Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha on September 29.
While ordering his removal, Justice Sinha observed that the court has lost confidence in the efficiency of the ED official concerned in carrying forward the smooth progress of the investigation in the school job case.
The judge recently expressed dissatisfaction over the mode of investigation spearheaded by Mishra and also asked him whether he wanted relief from the investigation.
The jurisdiction of the new assistant director will include high-profile cases related to money laundering in West Bengal like cash-for school job, cash-for municipalities’ job, coal and cattle smuggling among others.
Agency insiders said that already the case diaries relating to such cases have been handed over to the new assistant director.
He is also holding marathon meetings with his fellow investigating officers in the agency and discussing the steps to be adopted to expedite the process of investigation in such cases.
Sources said that the new assistant director is specially focussing on induction of additional investigating officers in the Kolkata office of the agency at Salt Lake in the northern outskirts of Kolkata.
Recently, information surfaced that there are six investigating officers in the ED’s Kolkata office, with four more officers in the superior ranks monitoring the progress of investigations in different cases of money laundering in the state.
Currently, a total of 131 cases of money laundering are under the jurisdiction of the ED’s Kolkata office, which effectively means that each of these six field investigation officers is handling as many as around 22 cases.
–IANS
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