Investigations by the Enforcement Directorate have gathered digital records in the form of bank transaction showing Chhavi Ranjan, an IAS officer and ex Deputy Commissioner of  Ranchi who was arrested on Friday, was involved in money laundering worth crores of rupees in connection with its probe into alleged land deals.

Right now, after the IAS officer was remanded to six-day ED custody by a special PMLA court in Ranchi on Saturday, is being grilled by the ED sleuths.

The ED has evidences suggesting that the accused IAS officer, who was in contact with aides of Chief Minister Hemant Soren, had committed the alleged money laundering in the alleged land deals under “ political patronage.”

Chhavi Ranjan, who was taken on remand for six days, was being questioned by the ED on April 13, when searches were carried out at his premises and those of some others in Jharkhand, Bihar, and West Bengal.

The ED had earlier arrested seven people,including a Jharkhand government officer, after the raids.

The central agencies is investigating more than a dozen land deals, including one connected with the India Army’s land, wherein a group of land mafias, middlemen and bureaucrats allegedly “ connived” in forging deeds and documents from as early as 1932.

Land transfers of the poor and tribals were ‘usurped’ as part of this fraud. The money transaction that took place included a sum of Rs 1 crore transferred to Chhavi Ranjan, who was then Deputy Commissioner, of Ranchi.

The bills of Chhavi Ranjan who toured Goa and stayed in star hotel there were cleared by the buyer of one plot of land fraudulently sold and land deeds and mutation paper released to him by his DC office.

Notably, Chhavi Ranjan, who will be presented at PMLA court in Ranchi on May 12, is the second IAS officer- first being Puja Singhal in money laundering case linked to the alleged embezzlement of MNREGA  scheme funds in Khunti and other suspicious financial transactions.