Trouble Brews For Akhilesh Yadav As CBI Books Ex-Minister

New Delhi: Trouble seems to be in store for former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as the CBI has booked his then ministerial colleague Gayatri Prajapati and several IAS offiers in alleged illegal sand mining case in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur district. Prajapati is currently in a UP jail in a gangrape case, involving a woman and her minor daughter.

Besides Prajapati, the Central Bureau of Investigation has named Jiwesh Nandan, then Principal Secretary of Geology and Mining department, Santosh Kumar, then Special Secretary, Geology and Mining, Hari Mohan Jha, then under Secretary of geology and mining and Abhay Kumar Singh, then District Magistrate of Fatehpur. Besides the IAS officers, the CBI has also booked Shiv Singh and Sukhraj, residents of Fatehpur in the case. The CBI filed the FIR On June 29 on the orders of the Allahabad High Court and booked them under the Prevention of Corruption Act, criminal conspiracy, theft and cheating. The investigating agency in its FIR alleged that Shiv Singh was granted a sand mining lease for three years on November 8, 2006. He reapplied for the renewal of the lease in 2009 without obtaining the ‘no due certificate’ for the amount of Rs 6.2 lakh for illegal mining. The FIR said the then ADM (Mining) and other mining official had rejected Shiv Singh’s renewal licence as it was found “non maintainable” on October 17, 2010. The FIR alleged that Shiv Singh then cleared all his dues of Rs 6.2 lakh with the Mining Department on May 1, 2012 and got the ‘no dues certificate’ on May 16, 2012 and also received the environmental clearance certificate on December 10, 2012.

The FIR alleged that Shiv Singh hatched a criminal conspiracy along with senior officers of Mining and Geology Department, as a result of which, Prajapati approved the illegal recommendations made by Nandan, Santosh Kumar, Jha and others. (IANS)

Also Read: It Was An Experiment That Failed: Akhilesh Yadav