IAS officer and former District Collector of Surendranagar Rajendrakumar Patel has been suspended by Gujarat government following his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a bribery-linked money laundering case.
The government had earlier removed him from the post of collector and put him on APO after ED launched investigation.
Patel, a 2015-batch IAS officer, has been remanded to the agency's custody till January 7.
In an order, the State's General Administration Department (GAD) said Patel was placed under suspension as his period of custody had exceeded 48 hours. “Now, therefore, Patel is deemed to have been placed under suspension with effect from January 2 in terms of sub-rule (2) of Rule 3 of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, until further orders,” the order stated.
The ED first arrested deputy mamlatdar (Revenue Officer) Chandrasingh Mori from Patel's office in a related money laundering case arising out of alleged bribery.
The case then finally linked to Patel, who was then arrested on January 2.
The bribery saga
According to the ED, Patel allegedly fixed bribe rates ranging between ₹5 and ₹10 per square metre for granting approvals for change of land use (CLU). The agency claimed that bribes were systematically demanded and collected as “speed money” to expedite CLU applications and were routed through a network of intermediaries operating from the District Collector's office.
So far, the probe has traced more than 800 CLU applications in which bribes were allegedly paid, leading to the generation of proceeds of crime exceeding ₹10 crore, the agency said.
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