The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday arrested Saumya Chaurasia, who was a deputy chief secretary in the course of the tenure of the earlier Congress authorities in Chhattisgarh, in reference to an alleged liquor rip-off that came about between 2019 and 2022, The Indian Express reported.
The counsel for the central company, Saurabh Kumar Pandey, informed the newspaper that Chaurasia will probably be produced earlier than a particular Prevention of Money Laundering Act courtroom in Raipur, after which additional particulars of her alleged position will probably be positioned on file.
The Chhattisgarh Anti-Corruption Bureau registered a primary data report within the alleged liquor rip-off in January 2024 based mostly on the Enforcement Directorate’s complaints.
The bureau alleged {that a} syndicate of bureaucrats and politicians in the course of the tenure of former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel ran a parallel excise division, underneath which liquor was offered with none income going to the state exchequer.
The FIR accused 70 individuals of involvement within the alleged rip-off, together with former state Excise Minister Kawasi Lakhma, Special Secretary Arun Pati Tripathi and Indian Administrative Service officer Anil Tuteja.
They have been charged with corruption, dishonest, forgery and prison conspiracy underneath the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
In September, the Enforcement Directorate arrested former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s son, Chaitanya Baghel, in reference to the case.
In a chargesheet, the company alleged that Chaitanya Baghel was the “controller and supreme authority” of an “organised liquor syndicate” within the state and had personally dealt with about Rs 1,000 crore generated from the alleged rip-off.
In March, searches have been performed in 14 places in Durg district linked to Chaitanya Baghel.
Chaurasia, a state administrative service officer who served as deputy chief secretary to Bhupesh Baghel, was earlier arrested by the ED in December 2022 in an alleged Rs 540-crore coal rip-off case. She was granted bail by the Supreme Court in May.
After the Bharatiya Janata Party got here to energy within the state in 2023, Chhattisgarh’s Anti-Corruption Bureau in 2024 booked Chaurasia in three circumstances, together with one associated to disproportionate belongings.
