E-Paper
₹2k crore corruption in Chhattisgarh liquor sales
The state government controls all aspects of liquor trade, from procurement to retail sale. No private liquor shops are allowed
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has gathered evidence of “unprecedented corruption and money laundering to the tune of ₹2,000 crore” in liquor sales for four years in Chhattisgarh which was being carried out with the “backing” of high-level politicians and bureaucrats in the state, the agency said on Sunday.
The federal agency also said that IAS officer Anil Tuteja, joint secretary in department of industry and commerce, was the kingpin of this illegal syndicate along with Anwar Dhebar, brother of Raipur mayor Aijaz Dhebar, who was arrested and remanded in custody for four days on Saturday.
The money laundering case stems from an Income Tax (I-T) department charge sheet filed earlier in connection with alleged tax evasion and irregularities in the liquor trade in Chhattisgarh and some other states. ED, which is probing the matter under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on the basis of I-T department’s charge sheet, had raided several places in the state in March this year.
The state government controls all aspects of liquor trade, from procurement to retail sale. No private liquor shops are allowed. All 800 liquor shops in the state are run by the government. The Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Limited (CSMCL) centrally procures all liquor sold in the state.
In a statement on Sunday, the agency said that it has “collected evidence of unprecedented corruption and money laundering to the tune of ₹2,000 crore between 2019 and 2022”.
The federal agency also said that investigations revealed that “an organised criminal syndicate led by Anwar Dhebar was operating in Chhattisgarh”. “Anwar Dhebar, though a private citizen, was backed by and was working for illegal gratification of the high level political executives and senior bureaucrats. He weaved an elaborate conspiracy and stitched a wide network of persons or entities to execute the scam so that money was illegally collected from every bottle of liquor sold in Chhattisgarh,” it added.
In its remand paper submitted before a sessions court in Raipur on Saturday, ED said the sale of unaccounted, illicit liquor was almost 30-40% of the total sale in the state.
“Anwar Dhebar was the main collection agent and frontman of this (liquor syndicate)...that had completely hijacked the administration of the excise department in Chhattisgarh,” the agency said.
“It was a travesty and irony that unaccounted liquor was sold from state run shops to the customers. Duplicate holograms were provided… Duplicate bottles were procured in cash… Liquor was transported directly from distiller to shops by-passing State warehouses… Excise officials were involved. Manpower was trained to sell unaccounted liquor and the entire sale was done in cash. No income tax, no excise duty, etc. were paid… Poor consumer was the only one who was unaware that he was buying unaccounted liquor. The entire sale was off the books,” it added.
ED probe also revealed that with the support of political executives, Anwar Dhebar managed to get a pliant commissioner and managing director of CSMCL and hired (his) close associates to make the system completely subservient to him.
“He controlled the entire chain of the liquor trade starting from private distillers, FL-10A license holders, senior officers of excise department, district level excise officers, manpower suppliers, glass bottle makers, hologram makers, cash collection vendor etc and leveraged it to extort maximum amount of bribes/commission. Various other stakeholders also illegally benefited in the process,” the agency said.
ED said that “Anwar Dhebar is responsible for collection of this entire illegal money, but is not the ultimate beneficiary of this scam. It is established that after deducting a percentage, he had passed on the remaining amounts to his political masters.”
Anwar’s advocate counsel Rahul Tyagi dismissed the allegations against his client. “The allegations seem to be politically motivated. We will knock on the doors of the Supreme Court in the matter,” he said.