Enforcement Directorate arrests Chhattisgarh CM’s Deputy Secretary in coal scam

New Delhi, December 2

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday arrested Saumya Chaurasia, Deputy Secretary, posted in Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s office, in connection with an alleged coal levy scam.

Considered a powerful bureaucrat, Chaurasia was taken into custody under the PMLA after questioning.

The officer was taken for a health checkup after the arrest. She was produced before Additional District and Sessions Judge Ajay Singh Rajput, said Chaurasia’s lawyer Faizal Rizvi. The ED sought 14-day custody but the special court granted only four days’ custody, he said.

The agency had in October arrested Sameer Vishnoi, an IAS officer, and two others, in the case after conducting several raids.

The money laundering investigation was launched after the ED took cognisance of an Income Tax Department complaint. The case pertained to a “massive” scam in which illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne was being extorted for every tonne of coal transported in Chhattisgarh by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen.

Extortion by bizmen, bureaucrats

The money laundering investigation, which was launched after the ED took cognisance of a Income Tax Department complaint, pertains to an alleged scam in which illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne was extorted from every tonne of coal transported in Chhattisgarh by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen.