Enforcement Directorate – Reinforcement urgently required
The very word ED once spelt terror – it’s an agency of repute like CBI and DRI, but unfortunately ED is now at the receiving end – an end which the agency is not really used to.
Chetan Gupta, an alleged hawala operator, has charged that in two high profile scams, he and his associates, including former chief minister Amarinder Singh's son, bribed a top official of the ED of the rank of special director.
In his confessions, Gupat said, ''I used to get 30/40 paise per dollar in this hawala and when the Enforcement Directorate initiated an enquiry into the same, then Tikku paid an amount of Rs 50 lakh through RS Gill, advocate, to special director and got the matter settled.''
Gupta further claimed, ''the enquiry into the Volcker fraud had been conducted by ED against Natwar Singh and his son Jagat Singh. At that time, my Mercedes car which was with Jagat Singh had been impounded by ED. 'I had also taken $20,000 from the said fraud from Jagat Singh and therefore my name had also cropped up and I paid an amount of Rs 1.5 crore as illegal gratification to the same high official of ED and escaped from the said incident.''
ED of course dismissed the claim as false entirely.
It is of course not very uncommon for investigating agencies to be accused of corruption, illegal actions and third degree torture. But this seems to be the first time that a premier investigating agency is accused of such high value corruption.