Businessman named in Chhattisgarh coal scam alleges torture by ED; Agency denies

The businessman accused the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials of pressurising him during interrogation to utter the names of some people to frame them in the case

A local businessman from Chhattisgarh named in the Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s affidavit in court in the alleged coal levy scam in the state has accused the agency of pressurising him during interrogation to utter the names of some people to frame them in the case, a charge the ED has denied and termed as “baseless”

The ED has termed the businessman’s allegations as baseless. (Representative Image)

The businessman, Nikhil Chandrakar, filed a police complaint and submitted a petition in the ED court claiming that he was subjected to mental torture by the agency officials during interrogation and was kept in illegal custody for more than a day.

The ED in their affidavit in November had claimed that Chandrakar was one of the close aides of the kingpin of the alleged scam, Suryakant Tiwari. He was called for questioning by ED on December 23.

However, the advocate representing the ED said that the allegations are frivolous and a detailed answer will be submitted in the court soon.

“I was also asked about the political people sitting in the top position in the government with whom I was not aware... I was threatened a lot... I was pressured to say that I paid off a man at the Congress office,” the complaint filed by Chandrakar with Telibandha police station claimed.

Chandrakar further alleged in his complaint that an officer present during the interrogation told him that he has to name some leaders and officers in order to get something against the state government because he was under pressure for the same.

Chandrakar also alleged that he was forced to sign many papers without being allowed to read them.

“We have submitted a complaint with police and on the basis of the complaint we have submitted an affidavit in the court on Monday that my client was tortured and pressurised during interrogation,” said Shoaib Alvi, Chandrakar’s counsel.

On the other hand, ED’s lawyer Saurabh Pandey said, “Chandrakar was close to main accused Surayakant Tiwari and others accused and we have enough evidence against him. The allegations against the ED are baseless and a detailed answer will be submitted to the court soon.”

The ED had earlier claimed that Tiwari was able to pressurise various officers to do illegal acts by using Chhattisgarh chief minister’s deputy secretary Saumya 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 in an affidavit submitted in November.

The central agency, in October arrested IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, businessman Sunil Agrawal, Laxmikant Tiwari, and kingpin Suryakant Tiwari and claimed Tiwari with a nexus of government officials used to collect illegal levy of ₹25 per tonne of coal which was transported from mines in Chhattisgarh.

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. “This opened a Pandora’s Box for corruption,” it added.