Bengal: ‘Less manpower’ vs ‘too many cases’ behind sluggish ED probes

Kolkata, Sep 30 : Inadequate manpower of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against too many cases of money laundering has been resulting in a sluggish probe in the state of West Bengal, a source close to the agency has said.

In fact, an ED counsel has told the Calcutta High Court the agencys Kolkata-based office has requested the head-office in Delhi to send in additional manpower.

The lack of manpower in EDs Kolkata office has come to the limelight in the wake of the decision of the Calcutta High Court to remove the agency’s assistant director Mithilesh Kumar Mishra as the head of the team investigating the multi-crore cash for school job case in West Bengal.

The court also observed that Mishra cannot be assigned to any kind of investigation into any money laundering case in West Bengal.

ED sources said that currently, there are six investigating officers in the EDs Kolkata office, with four more officers in the superior ranks monitoring the progress of investigations in different cases of money laundering in the state.

Currently, a total of 131 cases of money laundering are under the jurisdiction of the EDs Kolkata office, which effectively means that each of these six field investigation officers are handling as many as around 22 cases.

However, agency insiders said that the Kolkata office has been given assurance by the Delhi head office that more officers from the different units of the agency will be joining the ED office by October 10, which will ease the pressure of too many cases on a single investigating officer.

The ED has assured the Calcutta High Court of updating the latter about the development on this count as well.

src/pgh