Senior Bihar IPS officer Amit Lodha (IPS:1998:BH) seems to have landed into the eye of a storm just a month after being promoted to the post of Additional Director General (ADG). The Bihar government has constituted a committee to look into the possibility of giving prosecution sanction against him in the disproportionate assets case. Lodha is currently posted as ADG (State Crime Records Bureau).
As per protocol, the prosecution sanction is required to file a charge sheet against an officer in a disproportionate assets case and once the sanction is granted, the process of prosecution will begin. The case is with the Special Vigilance Unit (SVU) of the Bihar government.
Interestingly, when Lodha’s promotion was withheld by the government due to the pendency of case against him, he had approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) against delay in promotion and got the CAT’s ruling in his favour. He was subsequently promoted by the government. Now the committee will also see whether the CAT order can be challenged or not.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) also filed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002 against Amit Lodha. But the case is pending. Amit Lodha is alleged to have amassed assets worth more than Rs 7 crore, while his total income from all legal sources would not exceed Rs 2 crore without any deduction. The Patna High Court has already dismissed a petition seeking quashing of the FIR lodged against him by the SVU. Rather, the court had directed the probe agency to take the investigation of the case to its logical conclusion within a stipulated period.
During the hearing, SVU had claimed that when Lodha was posted as IG, Magadh Range (Gaya), he had gone to Mumbai in August 2021 to meet the production team of the web series and had received money from Friday Story Teller LLP in his HDFC Bank account.
Similarly, he had again visited the shooting location of the web series near Daltonganj, Jharkhand on September 16, 2021 and stayed with the production team at the same hotel on September 17, 2021, and was paid Rs 75,900 by the company. It stated that accumulation of assets disproportionate to income is a crime.
As per allegation, money was regularly transacted from the account of ‘Friday Story Tellers’ to the account of Komudi Lodha, wife of Amit Lodha, on various dates related to the production of a film and the ultimate beneficiary of this was Amit Lodha, his wife and his associates. Whatever be the final outcome, it is sure Amit Lodha is in the eye of the storm at this stage.
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