As the Enforcement Directorate closed in on former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda — the Jharkhand High Court on Thursday directed the state to produce a progress report on November 12 on the Vigilance probe into the disproportionate assets case against Koda and some of his former cabinet colleagues — investigations by the Income Tax department have uncovered that during his less than two-year stint as CM, his close associate Sanjay Kumar Choudhary invested in five mines abroad.

Documents seized by the Income Tax during searches last Saturday show that Choudhary — he was found carrying Rs 6.14 lakh in Indian and foreign currencies in his bags at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport terminal on September 17 last year — had invested in three mines in South Africa (gold, uranium and coal), a coal mine in Liberia and another coal mine “near Thailand”.

Koda was Chief Minister from September 2006 to August 2008.

The pattern of ownership, the share held by Choudhary and the quantum of reserves in these mines are not known. But in a May 19, 2008 letter to the Managing Director of National Bank, Dubai, Choudhary, Managing Director of Dubai-based Blue Techno Project FZCO, transferred five lakh Dirham (one UAE Dirham is roughly Rs 12) from his current account 0153662065 to The Clean Energy Company (CEC), account number 0151595435.

A file seized by Income Tax and handed over to the Enforcement Directorate for scrutiny revealed that the Blue Techno Project FZCO had purchased “P T Gunung Bara Coal Mine, 66 km by road from the jetty and 340 km from jetty to anchorage point Muara Jawa, near Thailand” from CEC.

... contd.