The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which had served notices to the suspended IAS couple Arvind and Tinoo Joshi in January 2011 after the Income-Tax department had submitted a 7,000 page appraisal report to the Madhya Pradesh chief secretary and the state Lokayukta, is now going through the final stages of investigation into alleged violation of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) by the tainted bureaucrats.
An officer from the ED’s Indore sub-zonal office told this newspaper on Wednesday evening that a team from the Directorate of Enforcement is now in the state capital and is in the last lap of its investigation into the allegations of money laundering and violation of FEMA by the Joshi couple. It is learnt that the ED would soon be attaching the immovable assets of the suspended IAS couple.
In a raid at their official residence here in February 2010, the Income-Tax department had seized `3 crore in cash and documents indicating acquisition of assets running into hundreds of crores. Significantly, the Income-Tax raid came close on the heels of the Joshi couple’s empanelment for the post of additional secretary or equivalent in the Government of India in May 2009.
The Madhya Pradesh government had suspended both the IAS officers immediately.