Chhattisgarh CM's Dy secy used extorted money as poll funding, ED tells court

Saumya Chaurasia, a 2008-batch State Administrative Service (SAS) officer of Chhattisgarh cadre, was arrested on Friday evening under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act

The Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s deputy secretary Saumya Chaurasia, along with kingpin Suryakant Tiwari and other government officials, extorted up to ₹ 500 crore as an illegal levy from coal and mining transporters in the state and used it for “election funding”, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) told a Raipur court while seeking Chaurasia’s remand on Friday. The court subsequently sent Chaurasia to four-day ED custody.

Saumya Chaurasia. (HT Photo)

Saumya Chaurasia, a 2008-batch State Administrative Service (SAS) officer of Chhattisgarh cadre, was arrested on Friday evening under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and later produced in the court of additional session judge Ajay Singh Rajput.

Chaurasia, a 2008-batch State Administrative Service (SAS) officer of Chhattisgarh cadre, was arrested on Friday evening under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and later produced in the court of additional session judge Ajay Singh Rajput. Chaurasia’s lawyer Faizal Rizvi has dismissed the charges. “All allegations of the ED are based on presumptions. There is no concrete evidence against my client,” he said.

Seeking Chaurasia’s custody, the ED told the court: “Investigation so far reveals that she (Chaurasia) has bought properties in the name of her family members by infusing this illegally earned cash from coal levy extortion.”

It also pointed out that Chaurasia is an officer posted in the CM’s office and is known to be very close to various politicians.

“The role of the political executives and other senior functionaries of the Chief Minister’s Office and state’s bureaucracy needs to be ascertained and she needs to be questioned regarding their role and involvement in this extortion racket... large amounts of payments made in cash out of the extorted coal levy are still shrouded in mystery because of the use of code words and evasive answers by Tiwari,” the ED told the court.

The probe agency claimed that the “main kingpin of this scam is Suryakant Tiwari and his associates who entered into a criminal conspiracy to run a parallel system of extorting illegal levy on coal and were doing illegal and unaccounted cash movement”.

“.... Tiwari is a private person and it is clear that strong support of the state executives was essential to extort money from the coal users... Chaurasia, because of her position in the CM office, enjoys power and influence which is far higher than her administrative experience and rank. Tiwari was acting as the eyes and ears of Chaurasia. To safeguard herself, she was using Tiwari as a ‘layer’ in the middle, to receive inputs and issue instructions to district-level officers. Thus, the real power/influence which allowed Suryakant Tiwari to run this extortion syndicate was the influence of Chaurasia,” the remand application added.

ED raids have been going on in the state for two months.

In October, the agency arrested IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, businessman Sunil Agrawal, Laxmikant Tiwari, and kingpin Suryakant Tiwari after it launched multi-city raids in the state.

It had then alleged that kingpin Tiwari, along with other government officials, collected an illegal coal levy of “ ₹500 crore in the past 16 months” and a part of the money was used for “election funding” and bribing officials. An illegal levy of ₹25 per tonne was charged for transporting coal, the federal investigative agency said.

“Suryakant Tiwari collected around ₹500 crore through extortion and active participation of his associates like Rajnikant Tiwari, Roshan Singh, Nikhil Chandrakar , Sheikh Moinuddin etc . The money collected is being used by Tiwari, Chaurasia, other senior government functionaries, to make party/election related expenditure by MLAs, to purchase benami assets, and layered into creating assets to ultimately claim them as untainted assets,” the ED told the court.

The ED further submitted that Tiwari was able to pressurize various officers to do illegal acts by using Chaurasia’s name.

“Suryakant Tiwari collected around ₹500 crore through extortion and active participation of his associates like Rajnikant Tiwari, Roshan Singh, Nikhil Chandrakar , Sheikh Moinuddin etc . The money collected is being used by Tiwari, Chaurasia, other senior government functionaries, to make party/election related expenditure by MLAs, to purchase benami assets, and layered into creating assets to ultimately claim them as untainted assets,” the ED claimed.

The ED had claimed that IAS officer Vishnoi with the collusion of other government officials created the framework to disturb the pre-existing online process of obtaining coal transportation permits. Vishnoi made it mandatory to get manual approval for dispatching of all minerals by consumers. By this order, Vishnoi made it mandatory for the Miners/Transporters to get manual NOC from the mining section of collector’s offices.