The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached 90 immovable properties worth ₹51.40 crore belonging to two Congress MLAs, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) official, and others, in connection with the alleged coal levy extortion scam in Chhattisgarh, the agency said on may 9.
Through a statement, the ED said that among the assets attached under the Prevention of Laundering Act (PMLA) were luxury vehicles, jewellery and cash linked to MLAs Devender Yadav and Chandradev Prasad Rai; IAS official Ranu Sahu; businessman and “kingpin” Suryakant Tiwari; R. P. Singh, Vinod Tiwari, and Ram Gopal Agarwal.
The agency alleged that there was direct evidence of financial linkages of the other persons with Mr. Tiwari. It had earlier attached properties worth ₹170 crore related to him, IAS official Sameer Vishnoi, Chhattisgarh Civil Service officer Saumya Chaurasia, businessman Sunil Agrawal, and others.
The money laundering probe, during which more than 145 premises have been searched and nine persons arrested by the ED so far, is based on a complaint lodged by the Income Tax Department. All the arrested accused are currently in judicial custody. Two charge-sheets have been filed in the case.
Based on its findings, the agency has established that “proceeds of crime” worth ₹540 crore were acquired in the extortion racket, in which coal buyers and transporters were allegedly targeted in Chhattisgarh.
In January, the ED had arrested Deepesh Taunk, Sandeep Kumar Nayak, Shiv Shankar Nag and Rajesh Chaudhary. It alleged that Mr. Taunk was a close confidant of Ms. Chaurasia, who was a Deputy Secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office. Mr. Nayak and Mr. Nag were mining officers who allegedly assisted Mr. Tiwari.
Mr. Chaudhary has been accused of being a conman who cheated close relatives of Mr. Sunil Agrawal on the pretext of securing his release. The businessman was arrested along with Mr. Vishnoi and one Laxmikant Tiwari.
According to the ED, senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen were part of the racket which started after the then Geology and Mining Department Director in the State modified the online process of issuing e-permits for transporting coal from mines in July 2020. A manual No-Objection Certificate (NOC) had been made mandatory.
Over 30,000 NOCs were issued without following any standard process, records were not being maintained, and there was no clarity about the role of officials concerned. Several other irregularities were detected by the probe agencies, as alleged.
The ED had earlier alleged that each coal buyer or transporter were made to pay ₹25 per tonne to the syndicate to get the NOC. “It is estimated that about ₹2 to ₹3 crore was generated on a daily basis,” it alleged.
Continuous ED raids in the State in connection with the coal levy scam and another, and a more recent, alleged 2,000 crore-liquor scam has been a source of constant friction between the Centre and the State. In the past, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has accused the ED and other Central agencies of harassing people in the name of investigation and even threatening police action against the officials of these agencies.
On Monday, he dismissed the ED claims in the liquor scam as fabricated and said that the agency should disclose how much mobile and immobile assets they had seized.
“The [premises belonging to] the same set of people are raided by the IT Income Tax first and then the ED, but they do not issue a press note declaring that how much money was found in whose house. This is only a conspiracy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to defame us,” Mr. Baghel told presspersons.
In what is understood to be in response to the Mr. Baghel’s statement, the ED said that the total attachment in the coal case was to the tune of ₹221.5 crore.
(With inputs from Shubhomoy Sikdar)
