Chhattisgarh: ED attaches assets of CM’s deputy secretary, IAS officer

RAIPUR: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached movable and 91 immovable properties worth Rs 152.31 crore belonging to four key accused whom the agency had earlier arrested and interrogated in connection with an alleged money laundering case and coal scam in Raipur. 

The assets attached belonged to the alleged main kingpin, Suryakant Tiwari (65 properties); deputy secretary in the CM secretariat, Saumya Chaurasia (21 properties); IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi (five properties); Sunil Agarwal and others, the ED said.

The assets include  ash, jewellery, flats, coal washeries and several plots of land (agricultural and commercial land, besides farmhouses in different districts) in Chhattisgarh. Meanwhile, all the four accused in the coal levy extortion case were again produced before the special PMLA court of additional sessions judge Ajay Singh Rajput in Raipur on Saturday. The court granted ED another four days of custodial remand for Chaurasia and extended the judicial remand for Tiwari, Vishnoi and Agarwal till January 11.

The federal probe agency has carried out extensive raids since October 11 at over 75 locations, including the mining department in Korba and Raigarh, where some incriminating evidence was seized. Statements of around 100 individuals were also recorded.

The ED has claimed to have traced a cartel, involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen and politicians, that had entered into an alleged criminal conspiracy pertaining to the massive scam in which illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne of coal was extorted and transported in the state.  “The investigation revealed a policy change introduced as part of a grand conspiracy in which the director (mining) issued a government order on July 15 that modified the existing efficient online system,” the ED said.