NEW DELHI (TIP): The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh to its Delhi headquarters in connection with the investigation into an alleged Rs 6.10 crore disproportionate assets and money laundering case against him and associates.

The agency has summoned him in the first week of December to record his statement or submit the same through solicitors. Based on preliminary investigation, the ED has found certain questionable transactions related to property purchases in Delhi and other cities.

The agency has filed a case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act after taking cognizance of a complaint filed by the CBI in September.

The ED had last week conducted searches in three states —Delhi, Maharashtra and West Bengal — on some of his alleged associates.

The CBI has alleged that Singh and his family members amassed wealth of Rs 6.10 crore between 2009 and 2011, disproportionate to their known sources of income, while he serving as Union steel minister. The CBI FIR had named Singh, his wife Pratibha, LIC agent Anand Chauhan and Chauhan’s brother C L Chauhan and charged them under Prevention of Corruption Act.

The CBI suspects that during the 2009-11 period, Singh allegedly invested Rs 6.10 crore in life insurance policies in his and his family members’ names through LIC agent Chauhan, claiming this money to be his agricultural income.

It alleged that Singh attempted to legitimize the same as agricultural income by filing revised income tax returns in 2012.

“The agricultural income as claimed by him in his revised ITRs was not found to be tenable. The then Union minister had allegedly accumulated other assets disproportionate to known sources of income,” CBI had alleged.