ED arrests Baghel’s dy secy in money-laundering case
RAIPUR: A Chhattisgarh court on Friday sent Saumya Chaurasia, a deputy secretary-rank officer posted in chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s office, to the Enforcement Directorate’s custody for four days, in a money-laundering case linked to the alleged extortion of an illegal levy from coal and mining transporters in the state.
Chaurasia was arrested on Friday evening under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and was later produced in court.
“The ED sought 14-day custody of Chaurasia from the court but after hearing the arguments, the court granted four days’ custody. The interrogation will be done in the presence of lawyers,” said Faizal Rizvi, Chaurasia’s lawyer.
Rizvi said the ED claimed that it has enough evidence against Chaurasia that she was engaged in illegal money transactions.
“The allegations against my client are baseless. Most of the
things that the ED presented in the court seeking remand were related to land purchase, which comes under the income tax department and my client had earlier clarified that issue,” Rizvi said.
The ED’s advocate Saurabh Kumar Pandey said the agency had enough evidence against Chaurasia in a case linked to alleged extortion of illegal levy from coal and mining transporters in the state.
“We have evidence that she has received money from various sources and the money was invested by her relatives in the purchase of land. Secondly, we also argued that Chaurasia had not cooperated in the investigation of the agency and had dodged the investigators several times,” said Pandey.
ED raids have been going on in the state for two months.
In October, the agency arrested IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi and others after it launched multi-city raids in the state.
In a statement, the agency had earlier 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 was generating about ₹2-3 crore daily.
The probe agency alleged that Vishnoi and his wife were found in possession of “unaccounted” cash to the tune of ₹47 lakh and 4kg gold jewellery. The money laundering investigation was launched after the ED took cognisance of a complaint by the income tax department.
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”. The agency said it seized “unaccounted” cash of ₹4.5 crore, gold jewellery, bullion and other valuables worth around ₹2 crore during the raids.
Hitting out against the arrest of his deputy secretary, Baghel tweeted: “As I have been saying, the arrest of my deputy secretary Saumya Chaurasia by the ED is political move. We will fight against this with all our might.”
On Sunday, he had posted a series of tweets alleging that the Centre was torturing the people in Chhattisgarh.
“ED is unnecessarily harassing people. The agency has no evidence against Chaurasia and is acting at the behest of BJP leaders,” said state unit spokesperson Sushil Anand Shukla.
The BJP, meanwhile, said the agencies were only doing their job. “ED is doing its job, why is the Congress afraid? The Congress government is indulged in corruption and everyone has a right to know,” said state BJP spokesperson Upasane Sachidanand.