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Chhattisgarh CM’s deputy secy sent to judicial custody in money laundering case
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has claimed that a massive scam was taking place in coal transportation in Chhattisgarh, under which a cartel of politicians, officers and others was allegedly running a parallel system of extorting illegal levy
A Raipur court on Wednesday sent Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s deputy secretary Saumya Chaurasia to judicial custody till December 19 in a money laundering case linked to the alleged coal levy scam in the state.
“The Enforcement Directorate moved an application to send Chaurasia in judicial remand on Wednesday. The court has sent her in judicial custody till December 19,” said Saurabh Pandey, the ED’s advocate.
On December 2, ED arrested Chaurasia under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and later produced her in the court. The court on the same day sent her to the agency’s custody.
It is worth mentioning that ED has been conducting raids in the state for the last two months.
In October 2022, ED arrested an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Sameer Vishnoi and others after the agency launched multi-city raids in the state.
ED in a statement then claimed that a “massive scam” was taking place in coal transportation in Chhattisgarh, under which a “cartel” of politicians, officers and others was allegedly running a “parallel system of extorting illegal levy”, generating about ₹2-3 crore daily.
The probe agency has 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”.
On December 10, claiming that an amount of at least ₹540 crore was extorted in the last two years, ED provisionally attached movable and immovable properties worth ₹152.31 crore belonging to the accused in money laundering case.
The federal agency claimed that the properties of coal trader Tiwari, deputy secretary to the chief minister of Chhattisgarh Saumya Chaurasia (21 properties), IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi (5 properties), Sunil Agarwal and others include cash, jewellery, flats, coal washeries and plots of land.
“ED has conducted searches at more than 75 locations including the Mining Departments at the collector offices of Korba and Raighad and collected incriminating evidence. ED has recorded statements of around 100 individuals and the investigation revealed that as part of a grand conspiracy, policy changes were made and director mining issued a government order on 15.7.2020 to modify an existing efficient online system of issuance of transport permits, to introduce a manual layer where coal users were forced to apply for no-objection certificate (NOC) with state mining officers,” ED said in a press release.
