IAS officer B Chandrakala was summoned on Friday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with an illegal sand mining case in Uttar Pradesh.

The 39-year-old officer has been summoned for questioning to the ED office in Lucknow. The ED also summoned three others, including Samajwadi Party MLC Ramesh Kumar Mishra. All of those summoned have been asked to appear on 28 January.

According to reports, the ED had filed an FIR on Thursday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against those summoned.

Reports say that the ED will also identify assets created by the accused with the money earned through illegal means.

The ED case is based on the CBI FIR which alleged that Chandrakala, the former District Magistrate of Hamirpur district, had granted several lease in violation of the Allahabad High Court orders which had ratified an e-tender policy.

The CBI is probing the illegal sand mining case and role of bureaucrats and politicians in Uttar Pradesh between 2012 and 2016.

Former Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav is under CBI scanner. As CM, Yadav had reportedly granted the mines leases to 14 people in 2013 in Hamirpur district against the High Court’s order.

On January 7, the CBI released a list of 22 leases cleared by the Samajwadi Party chief, who held the mining portfolio during 2012-13, and was later succeeded by Gayatri Prasad Prajapati.

According to reports, the role of the ministers who held the mining portfolio during the period when the irregularities took place will also be examined by the ED.

After taking up the case on the instructions of Allahabad High Court in 2016, the CBI registered its case on 2 January 2018 against 11 persons, including Chandrakala, miner Adil Khan, geologist/mining officer Moinuddin, Mishra and his brother, and Sanjay Dikshit, who contested the 2017 Assembly polls on the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket, and his father.

Three days later, the CBI raided Chandrakala’s homes in Lucknow and Noida and seized two bank accounts and one locker. Mishra’s house in Kanpur was also searched.