Govt repatriates ED officer who probed several important cases

The Centre has ordered the repatriation of ED Special Director Satyabrat Kumar, a lead investigator of the agency who supervised some of the most high-profile money-laundering cases in the country, including against Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya and the Mahadev app online-betting case.

Kumar, a 2004-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of the Customs and Indirect Taxes cadre, is currently posted as the head of the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) eastern region headquartered in Kolkata.

An order issued by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) on May 30 said the proposal of the Department of Revenue (under the Union finance ministry) for a curtailment of Kumar's deputation tenure has been ''approved'' along with repatriation to his parent cadre with immediate effect.

The officer had a tenure in the agency till October next year. He was given an extension in 2022 to ensure ''continuity'' in the investigation of important cases.

ED officials told PTI that this was a ''routine'' order for repatriation.

Officers come on deputation to the ED from various services like the IRS, IPS etc. and then they go back to their parent cadre, they said.

Kumar joined the ED in 2013. He has spent about 12 years in the federal probe agency, making him one of the longest-serving officers on deputation.

He was transferred from the Mumbai-headquartered western region of the agency in September last year, ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly polls, to head the eastern region at Kolkata.

The officer led the investigation in many high-profile cases in the western region, including the alleged USD 2-billion bank fraud against diamond traders Modi and Mehul Choksi, the bank-loan fraud case against liquor baron Mallya and a number of ''sensitive'' cases involving several politicians in Maharashtra.

He was instrumental in getting attached several foreign-based assets, termed proceeds of crime, worth crores of rupees in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case.

The western region under Kumar also investigated the Mahadev online-betting app case, in which links to various Chhattisgarh-based politicians, businessmen and Bollywood actors are being investigated.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)