The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday raided the offices related to three departments of the Chhattisgarh government in a money laundering case linked to the alleged coal levy scam in the state.
Chhattisgarh police officers said that the ED officers have reached the offices in Indrawati Bhawan in Nava Raipur and search in these offices are going on .“The ED is searching offices of the labour , irrigation and environment department in Naya Raipur. More details are yet to come,” said a senior police official.
Earlier on Monday, the ED raided premises linked to eight Congress leaders after which the party launched a protest.
The raids came days before the 85th plenary of the Congress’ central decision-making body, which is due to be held in Raipur from February 24 to 26. Over 15,000 delegates will join the plenary to discuss the political situation, economy, foreign policy, agriculture, employment, social justice, etc, and set the tone for the Congress’ 2024 national poll campaign.
Terming the raids as politically motivated , Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is misusing central agencies to crush the voices of political opponents.
Earlier, the ED’s chargesheet mentioned 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.
The ED first arrested Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Sameer Vishnoi, businessman Sunil Agrawal, who owns Indermani group, and Laxmikant Tiwari, uncle of “absconding” businessman and kingpin Suryakant Tiwari, after it launched multi-city raids in the state on October 11. The three have been arrested under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Later, Suryakant Tiwari was also arrested by the ED and was presented before the court after questioning.
The ED, in it documents submitted to the court, termed it as a “mega scam”, and said the “genesis of the scam of generation of illegal money through transportation of coal was started once the Geology and Mining Department issued a notification on July 15, 2020, signed by Vishnoi in the capacity of director of geology and mining department”.
The ED in a statement had 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”, which is generating about ₹2-3 crore daily.
The probe agency 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 2, the ED arrested Chhattisgarh chief minister’s deputy secretary, Saumya Chaurasia in the case and alleged that her WhatsApp chats retrieved by the Income Tax Department revealed that she was sharing all the government’s confidential information with kingpin Suryakant Tiwari.
