Gujarat: ED gets 5-day remand of Rajendra Patel

Ahmedabad: A special PMLA court on Friday granted the Enforcement Directorate (ED) remand of former Surendranagar district collector Rajendrakumar Patel till Jan 7 in connection with an alleged bribery racket run in the collectorate for the speedy processing of land-use change applications.After his arrest, Patel was produced before the court in the afternoon, and the investigator sought his 10-day custodial interrogation on various grounds, primarily to find out where he had stashed the allegedly huge bribe amount.
The remand report placed before the court quoted statements of the co-accused in the case, throwing light on how different officers used to get their shares of the bribe amounts.The agency cited the arrested deputy mamlatdar and executive magistrate, Chandrasinh Mori, who allegedly stated that 50% of the bribe collected went to collector Dr Rajendra Patel, 10% to himself, 25% to residential additional collector R K Oza, 10% to mamlatdar Mayur Dave, and 5% to clerk Maryusinh Gohil. The ED also cited the co-accused, who said that Patel's personal assistant used to collect the bribe amount on his behalf and later handed it over to him. It claimed that the probe was underway into the creation of assets and how the collector concealed the bribe amount. Patel bought a flat in Ahmedabad's Chandlodia area, and his mother was collecting rent. Patel did not pay fees for his son and daughter, who are studying in a Surendranagar school.The remand was sought to probe the leads the investigators received from the statements of the accused. Besides, it cited a witness, Chetan Kanzaria, who claimed to have paid a bribe of Rs 65 lakh to get permission to change land use. The ED stated that from the "hisaab sheet" of bribe money prepared by the accused, it traced 800 such applications for NA permissions, from which the accused persons received bribe amount of over Rs 10 crore.