Jharkhand contractor gets 3-year rigorous imprisonment for money laundering

New Delhi, Jul 2 (PTI) A special PMLA court in Ranchi has convicted a Jharkhand contractor on money laundering charges in a case of cheating the state exchequer while undertaking a road construction work, the Enforcement Directorate said Tuesday.

Vijay Kumar Tiwari, director of Kalawati Construction Pvt Ltd, has been sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment by the court that passed its order on June 26, the ED said in a statement.

The special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on him and ordered confiscation of more than Rs 20 lakh funds that were earlier attached by the central probe agency calling them the "proceeds of crime".

The money laundering case stems from a CBI FIR which filed a charge sheet against the accused and the company. The ED had filed its own charge sheet against them in March, 2018.

The ED said its probe found that Kalawati Constructions, Garhwa was awarded a contract for execution of the 'special repair' of Balumath-Harhargunj-Panki Road at a contractual value of Rs 1.32 crore.

"The company and its director (Tiwari) submitted 13 bitumen invoices, out of which 11 invoices covering 224.25 MT bitumen worth Rs 55.41 lakh were found to be fake.

"This caused wrongful gain to him (Tiwari) and corresponding loss to the state exchequer of Jharkhand," it said.

No bitumen was procured or supplied against those 11 fake bitumen invoices, the ED found.

The agency said Tiwari had deposited Rs 35.41 lakh to the concerned department as per the order of Jharkhand High Court, at the time of his bail. PTI NES KVK KVK