Chhattisgarh ACB books 2 IAS, state civil service officer in DA case
The cases were registered based on the details of properties listed by ED in its charge sheet in the coal levy scam, an official said
RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh’s anti-corruption bureau (ACB) has registered cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act against three bureaucrats for allegedly possessing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income, people familiar with the matter said on Monday.
The three civil servants, two Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, Sameer Vishnoi and Ranu Sahu, and a state civil service officer Saumya Chaurasia, have been under investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as part of its money laundering probe related to an alleged coal levy case in Chhattisgarh and are in judicial custody. Chaurasia was previously deputy secretary to former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel.
The cases were registered based on the details of properties listed by ED in its charge sheet in the coal levy scam. “We are investigating the case and we will file chargesheets soon,” said a senior police officer of ACB.
The cases were registered on July 2.
The federal anti-money laundering probe agency had claimed that a “massive scam” took place between 2019 and 2021 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 first chargesheet in the case was filed on December 9 2022, in which IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, businessman Sunil Agrawal, Suryakant Tiwari and his uncle Laxmikant Tiwari, all arrested earlier by the ED, were named as accused. Later, ED filed a first supplementary charge sheet on January 30 2023, naming Chhattisgarh chief minister’s deputy secretary Saumya Chaurasia and six others, including two mining officers, as accused. On December 2 last year, ED arrested Chaurasia in the case, alleging that she shared government’s confidential information.
Officials said ED asked the Chhattisgarh government to file corruption cases against the three back in January 2023 when the Congress was still in power.
“State of Chhattisgarh may take cognizance in the aforesaid coal scam and initiate investigation under the relevant provisions of Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act against Vishnoi and other government officials involved in the scam. Further, based on the incriminating materials provided by the ED, FIR may be registered against Vishnoi as well as other public servant under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the properties as mentioned above (both movable and immovable) may be seized as per the provisions contained in Section 13 of Chhattisgarh Special Courts Act, 2015, (a copy of the Act, 2015 is enclosed herewith),” the ED letter said.
In January this year, ACB registered a case against 35 people includ]ing Saumya Chaurasia, Sameer Vishnoi, Ranu Sahu, Suryakant Tiwari, Congress leader Ram Gopal Aggarwal, MLA Devendra Singh Yadav and former MLA of Kunkuri UD Minj, among others,
The coal levy scam FIR, seen by the HT, describes Tiwari as the mastermind. The FIR alleged that an illegal levy of ₹25 per tonne was being extorted for every tonne of coal transported in the state by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen.
