Delhi : 9 May. With the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arresting Anwar Dhebar, elder brother of Raipur mayor Ejaz, investigation into coal levy extortion and liquor scam which was stonewalled by multiple litigations, has now gained the traction and pace people had been waiting for a long time.
The federal agency has widened its ambit of investigation into alleged illegal money transactions in liquor trade, had hit the roadblock with the key state government official known for their proximity to Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, ignoring the summons issued against them by the federal agency. In a letter addressed to Chief Secretary Amitabh Jain, IAS Anil Tuteja, one of the officials specifically pointed out by the ED, however, tried to explain his position on the issue.
With the Chhattisgarh assembly hustings slated to be held at the fag end of this year, the federal agency was increasingly getting apprehensive of the fact that delay tactics may render mammoth probe exercise snowballed into a political controversy.
CM Bhupesh Baghel appears keen on terming the entire probe as part of ‘operation lotus’ to dethrone him from the power. Every time ED conducts a raid or summons his close aides to join the probe, he fires a salvo at the BJP led government at the centre. He however, has not shown any urgency, when ED and Income Tax authorities asked his government to initiate departmental action against Tuteja and others for money laundering and other other irregularities. His apparent inclination to stand with these officials, has emboldened the entire set of people who have been under the ED scanner.
Anxious for its ongoing probe into alleged extortion of illegal levy in coal and iron ore, the Federal agency shot off a letter to the Chief Secretary on April 15 requesting him to ensure that summons are served to the officials under scanner and they be instructed to attend the proceedings. Anil Tuteja, who is serving the state government as the Joint Secretary with the Department of Commerce and Industry, had to appear before the agency on April 4, 8, 11, and 14 the designated dates for his appearance, but he never turned up, the ED alleged in its letter.
Similarly, Arun Pati Tripathi, Managing Director of Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Ltd, also skipped the summons for his personal appearance on 12 April, the letter claimed.
Unfazed Tuteja however, claimed that he had duly applied for earned leaves till 28th April on medical grounds and that each summons at his residence were duly received and replied back through his authorised representatives. He said that he had sought two weeks’ time through a letter to ED as matter is subjudice in the Supreme Court.The delaying tactics notwithstanding, arrest of Anwar Dhebar as key accused Enforcement Directorate (ED) has thwarted efforts to derail the ongoing investigation. It had on 28 March widened its investigation into illegal extortion in coal and iron ore transport in Chhattisgarh with raids on Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s close aides including Raipur mayor Ejaz Dhebar, Anil Tuteja, liquor baron Baldev and Amolak Singh Bhatia.
The federal agency also had held sorties against Public Relations and Transport Commissioner Dipanshu Kabra, owners and distributors of several liquor distilleries and politicians. ED sleuths claimed that they have recovered a huge cache of incriminating documentary and electronic evidence during these raids. Hotel and liquor tycoon Anwar Dhebar who also happens to be a sibling of Raipur mayor Ejaz Dhebar had been missing since raids on his residential and business premises. Agency sources claimed that they have zeroed in on some of the Chief Minister’s close relatives and they may be summoned within the next few days.
Dhebar, Tuteja and Bhatia were also raided by the Income Tax sleuth in July last year as well. Whereas, Income Tax authorities lodged a case against Tuteja, Dhebar and 13 others in November last year. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s Laxmi Narayan Bansal alias Pappu Ji was also mentioned in diaries recovered from coal levy extortion kingpin Suryakant Tiwari and whatsapp chats between Anil Tuteja and Baghel’s then powerful Deputy Secretary Saumya Chaurasia. An entry worth more than Rs. 142 crores was found against his name.
Similarly, Anil Tuteja, his son Yash Tuteja were also said to be involved in various illegal transactions. Bhatias, rivals in liquor trade, IT and ED sleuths believe had been working in close cohesion with Anwar and Ejaz Dhebar in liquor and several other trades and money laundering. Likewise, the name of AP Tripathy also figured in several documents and electronic evidence IT and ED found during searches. Congress treasurer Ramgopal Agrawal, industrialist Kamal Sarda, businessman KK Shrivastava have also figured in various documentary evidence.
Similar raids were conducted days before Congress’s plenary session in Raipur last month. Premises belonging to Ramgopal Agrawal, Congress MLA Devendra Yadav, Chandra Dev Rai and others were raided on February 22. The ongoing sortie, sources say, is based on the documents and other evidence collected during earlier raids and statements recorded by the agency. ED action assumes significance with the federal agency tightening its noose around Dipanshu Kabra, the powerful IPS officer who not only heads a well-oiled transport department but also rules the roost in the department of Public Relations, a government wing entrusted with image-building and maintaining media relations.
Kabra, was entrusted with the government’s mammoth PR wing to fix scribes critical of the government. ED sleuths are probing Kabra’s role and connection with alleged illegal collection, believed to be to the tune of Rs. 4 crore a day, in the transport department, sources confided. Earlier, top industrial houses including steel magnate Jindal Steel Works (JSW) had confessed to have paid extortion levy worth more than Rs. 360 crore to kingpin Suryakant Tiwari for securing transit passes for coal and iron ore transport in Chhattisgarh during the last three years. Chhattisgarh houses more than a dozen top steel, power and mining giants including Vedanta.
ED gave a chilling account of extortion of levy by small time coal trader turned kingpin Tiwari in its charge-sheet filed in a Special Court in Raipur on 9 December. Tiwari, the federal agency termed, had acquired “larger than life figure” in the current Congress dispensation owing to his proximity to Chief Minister’s suspended Deputy Secretary Saumya Chaurasia (in jail for money laundering) and some very high profile politicians. “According to the investigation so far, the amount of collection through this method is in the tune of Rs. 360 crore”, the ED claimed in its more than 8,000 page chargesheet against Saumya, Suryakant Tiwari and others.
Vishal Kumar Jain of Mahaveer Energy and Coal Beneficiation Ltd, for instance, confessed to have paid illegal levy of approx Rs 7 crore to Suryakant through his associate Nikhil Chandrakar and Roshan Singh at rate of Rs. 25 per tonne of coal he transported from the mines, the chargesheet claimed. Similarly, Sanjay Kumar Jha, a high ranking officer with the Jindal Steel Works Ispat Special Products Ltd. (JSWISPL) deposed before the agency claiming that the amount was paid for clearance of transit pass from the respective mining office and the clearance from the mining department was not released unless the said amount of Rs. 25 per tonne was paid.
The ED has so far provisionally attached movable and 91 immovable properties worth Rs 152.31 Crore belonging to Suryakant Tiwari, Saumya Chaurasia, IAS Sameer Vishnoi, Sunil Agarwal & others. The properties include cash, jewellery, flats, coal Washeries and land. Further probe by the ED revealed that Policy changes were made to replace an existing efficient online system of issuance of transport permits with a manual layer where coal users were forced to apply for NOC with state mining officers.
The new arrangement engendered extortion at the rate of Rs 25 per tonne of transported coal with Suryakant as their key henchman at the ground level who deployed his employees in various regions to extort money from Coal Transporters & Industrialists. His team was physically coordinating with lower level government functionaries and Coal transporters & representatives of user companies, an ED communique claimed.
Since his employees were spread across the State, they maintained WhatsApp groups, excel sheets of each Coal Delivery Order & the extorted amounts and shared them with Suryakant Tiwari, who in turn maintained detailed handwritten Diaries of the incoming bribe amounts & their utilisation for purchase of benami lands, payment of bribes, payments for political expenditure etc.
Hinting that this kind of systemic extortion was not possible without the knowledge & active participation of the State machinery, the agency said that it ran uninterrupted without a single FIR and collected around Rs 360 Crore in 2 years. It clearly indicates that the accused persons were acting in a concerted manner at the instructions of person(s) at the highest level, having command & control over the state machinery, the agency said in one of its press release then
ED had arrested IAS Sameer Vishnoi, trader Sunil Agarwal, Laxmikant Tiwari and Suryakant Tiwari in October and nabbed Saumya Chaurasia in this case on December 2. Suryakant ran this syndicate and was able to coerce various government officers due to the overarching influence of Saumya Chaurasia, the agency added.”The role of the political executives and other senior functionaries of the Chief Minister’s Office and State bureaucracy needs to be ascertained and she (Saumya) needs to be questioned regarding their role and involvement in this extortion racket”, Special Public Prosecutor Dr. Saurabh Kumar Pandey had stated while appearing for ED in the special PMLA court
