The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a prosecution complaint against Sanjeev Hans, a former senior IAS officer in Bihar, accusing him of receiving bribes worth Rs 60 crore from an electrical infrastructure firm. The bribes were allegedly funneled through a subcontracting arrangement with companies controlled by Hans and his associates. The ED has also directly linked Hans to assets worth Rs 100 crore.
According to the chargesheet, Genus Power Infrastructures Limited, which won a major contract to supply smart meters across Bihar in 2022-2023, routed the bribe money to Hans. The contract, valued at Rs 3,300 crore, was awarded during Hans’s tenure as the Chairman and Managing Director of the Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited. The bribe was allegedly transferred through subcontracted work in the names of companies controlled by Hans and his associates.
On October 18, 2024, the ED arrested Sanjeev Hans, a 1997-batch IAS officer from the Bihar cadre, in Patna. Along with him, former Jhanjharpur MLA Ghulab Yadav, identified as a close associate of Hans, was arrested in Delhi.
The ED’s investigation stems from an FIR filed by the Bihar Police, following a complaint by an Allahabad High Court lawyer who accused Yadav and Hans of rape. Although the Patna High Court quashed the FIR, the Bihar government’s special vigilance unit (SVU) filed a case against them for possessing disproportionate assets.
So far, the ED has arrested 11 individuals in connection with the case, with all but Hans’s IIT Delhi batchmate, Vipul Bansal, in judicial custody. Bansal was granted interim bail on medical grounds.
In its chargesheet, the ED named several individuals, including Hans, Yadav, Pushpraj Bajaj and Praveen Chaudhary, two vendors in the energy and water resources department, as well as Shadab Khan. These individuals are accused of assisting Hans in laundering the proceeds of crime.
The ED began its investigation in April 2024, conducting raids at 20 locations over two days. The raids targeted Hans’s residences in Patna, Delhi, and Amritsar, as well as Yadav’s homes in Jhanjharpur and Patna. During these raids, the ED seized luxury watches worth Rs 40 lakh and 1,100 grams of gold from Hans’s property in Patna.
In September 2024, the ED expanded its investigation to four locations linked to Vipul Bansal and other middlemen, who allegedly helped Hans launder the bribe money in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata.
The chargesheet also revealed that Genus Power Infrastructures won contracts worth over Rs 3,800 crore for the installation of smart meters in Bihar between 2022 and 2023. At the time, Sanjeev Hans was the principal secretary of the state’s energy department.
The ED alleges that Pawan Dhoot of Dhoot Infrastructure Projects forged an agreement with Genus Power to secure the contract for a 4% commission. Of the Rs 123 crore in bribes agreed upon, Rs 60 crore was allegedly routed through Dhoot Infrastructure to Prema Smart Solution Private Limited, a company controlled by Hans’s associate, Pushpraj Bajaj.
According to the ED, negotiations for the bribe amount reached Rs 123 crore, but only half of it was paid before the investigation began.
The bribes were allegedly laundered through companies like Prerna Smart Solution and Dhoot Infrastructure Projects, with assistance from individuals like Praveen Chaudhary, Shadab Khan, and Pushpraj Bajaj. These funds were reportedly used to invest in the stock market, acquire properties, and cover various expenses.
In addition to the arrests, the ED has attached seven immovable properties linked to Hans and his associates, including land in Nagpur, a flat in Delhi’s upscale Anand Niketan area, and three flats in Jaipur. These properties are valued at approximately Rs 23.72 crore and were acquired in the names of Hans’s associates and family members.
The ED has also frozen nearly Rs 6 crore in 70 bank accounts linked to Hans and his relatives, which are suspected to be proceeds of crime. Investigators allege that these assets far exceed Hans’s legal income.
