Ranchi, January 22: Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, now in Birsa Munda Central jail here, was today questioned for over four hours by Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths on alleged hawala and mines transactions.
“Madhu Koda was questioned from 11 am to 3.45 pm by a team of ED headed by the agency’s Deputy Director D N Podar. The team have come from Delhi,” a jail official said here.
Enforcement Directorate sources said during the marathon grilling, Koda was asked on an ED questionnaire on alleged illegal investments and hawala transactions.
The questioning took place 82 days after the nationwide joint raids by the ED and Income Tax in 70 premises, including those of Koda and his associates.
The questioning will continue tomorrow, the jail official said.
Soon after the raids on October 31, IT Deputy Director Ujwal Choudhary had made a disclosure of Rs 2,000 crore scam covering illegal investments and hawala transactions.
Another senior IT official had said the files of mining department between 2004 and 2008 had been examined as the raids revealed purchase of mines in Liberia and other foreign countries.
The raids were a follow-up action after the ED booked Koda and seven others on October 9, 2009 in connection with Rs 4,000 crore scam involving the mine purchases. Koda’s aides Binod Sinha and Sanjay Choudhary were still at large despite facing arrest warrants from IT and state Vigilance Bureau.
Koda was arrested on November 11, 2009 by the state Vigilance Bureau, which is probing a disproportionate assets case against him, and sent to judicial custody.
Koda’s former cabinet colleagues Enos Ekka, Harinarayan Rai and Kamlesh Singh were also in judicial custody in connection with separate DA cases.
While Rai and Ekka had won in the recently concluded assembly elections, Singh lost.
A Lok Sabha member, Koda had fielded his wife, Geeta who won the Jagannatpur assembly seat in the elections.
-PTI