LUCKNOW, Sept. 18 -- A special court in Lucknow has taken cognisance of an Enforcement Directorate (ED) charge sheet against two accused, including a former project director of the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case linked to misappropriation of MGNREGA funds in seven Uttar Pradesh districts between 2007 and 2010, senior ED officials confirmed here on Wednesday senior officials confirmed. In a press note shared with the media, a senior ED official said that the Allahabad Sub-Zonal Office had filed a charge sheet against Bhagwati Prasad Verma and Athar Parvez under the provisions of the PMLA, 2002, before the special court (PMLA) in Lucknow on April 24, 2025. The court took cognisance of the charge sheet after over four and a half months, on September 9. Charges will now be framed against the accused and trial proceedings will begin, he added. The ED initiated its probe on the basis of an FIR registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Central Bureau of Investigation, Lucknow, under sections of the IPC, 1860, and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The case pertains to abuse of official position, criminal conspiracy, and misappropriation of MGNREGA funds in Balrampur, Gonda, Mahoba, Sonbhadra, Sant Kabir Nagar, Mirzapur, and Kushinagar between 2007 and 2010. According to the official, the ED investigation revealed that Bhagwati Prasad Verma, then project director of DRDA and additional district programme coordinator, MGNREGA, along with Athar Parvez, in collusion with other government officials and private suppliers, facilitated procurement of job cards, complaint boxes, registers, generators, tents, first-aid kits, water tanks, signboards, and printing materials at exorbitant rates from firms like Sanyukt Samiti Panchayat Udyog, Chinhat (Lucknow) and Panchayat Udyog, Jhanjhari (Gonda), causing significant pecuniary loss to the government exchequer. The investigation established the generation and layering of proceeds of crime, leading to the attachment of nine immovable properties worth Rs.97.18 lakh in Lakhimpur and Kanpur on November 29, 2023, the official said....