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Chhattisgarh CM Baghel's top aide arrested by ED: Who is Saumya Chaurasia?
Saumya Chaurasia is a civil servant from the Chhattisgarh Administrative Service (CAS) and joined the chief minister’s office after Baghel formed the government in the state in 2018.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday arrested Saumya Chaurasia, the deputy secretary to the Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, in an alleged money laundering case. She was arrested for allegedly being involved in an illegal mining case involving over ₹150 crore.
Chaurasia is a civil servant from the Chhattisgarh Administrative Service (CAS) and joined the chief minister’s office after Baghel formed the government in the state in 2018. She was under the radar of central agencies and places linked to her including others have been raided by the Income Tax (IT) department.
The top bureaucrat earlier made headlines when the I-T department raided her house in July and seized a total of ₹14 crore worth of ‘undisclosed’ cash and jewellery. She was also detected to have evaded taxes worth several crores.
Chaurasia’s Bhilai house was first searched by income tax officials in February 2020, prompting Baghel to send an angry letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over what he called "unconstitutional" and "politically motivated" income-tax (I-T) raids in the Congress-ruled state. Baghel’s letter alleged that the raids coincided with a criminal investigation initiated by his government into acts of corruption under the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
The searches were being conducted by tax officials based on the requisition from outside Chhattisgarh. Searches were conducted in more than 30 locations within the state.
