ED arrests 3 advocates in Patna Railway Claims Tribunal ‘fraud’ case

The federal agency said in a statement that it recently raided four locations related to Judge R K Mittal and some advocates in Patna and Nalanda in Bihar, and Mangaluru in Karnataka.

Three advocates Bidyanand Singh, Parmanand Sinha and Vijay Kumar were arrested on Wednesday for the offence of money laundering related to this “scam”. The three have been sent to judicial custody by a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court in Patna, the agency said.

The ED said its case stems from FIRs filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation regarding “mass-scale” irregularity and criminality in the death claim cases filed, processed and decided by the Railway Claims Tribunal in Patna.

In accidental railway death claim cases, only a part of the decreed amount awarded to the claimants was received by them and a major chunk was siphoned off by the conspirators, the ED alleged.

“Bidyanand Singh and his team of advocates, including Parmanand Sinha and Vijay Kumar, dealt with around 900 cases where decrees or execution orders were issued by Judge R K Mittal and about ₹50 crore compensation was awarded to the claimants.

“It is found that these advocates opened and operated the bank accounts of claimants without their knowledge and by using their signatures and thumb impressions, transferred the claim amount received from the railways to their accounts or withdrew it in cash,” the agency claimed.

Later, it said, they gave part of the compensation amount to the claimants as per their will.

The ED said the searches resulted in the identification of assets “acquired” by the advocates and the judge apart from the recovery of physical and digital records including blank cheques and blank papers signed by the claimants.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.