Movable and immovable properties worth more than ₹152 crores belonging to Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel’s deputy secretary Saumya Chaurasia, IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi and other accused have been attached by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the multi-crore coal levy extortion case.
The properties attached include 91 immovable assets, cash, jewellery, flats, coal washeries and plots of land located in Chhattisgarh, ED officials said on Saturday.
Out of the total assets, a maximum of 65 belong to “main henchman” Suryakant Tiwari, 21 properties of CMO deputy secretary Chaurasia, and five properties of IAS officer Vishnoi. The assets of Sunil Agarwal and the other accused have also been attached.
Agriculture lands admeasuring 63.38 acres in Hirri, Potiya, Sevati, and Durg towns and 10 acre in Rasni and Arang localities of Raipur area are among the immovable properties impacted by the action.
The case pertains to levying fees on the transportation of coal illegally through a network of government officers, babus and private persons.
According to the ED investigation, a “grand conspiracy” was hatched to extort money from coal transporters. As part of this conspiracy, a government order was issued by the Chhattisgarh mining department in July 2020 to “modify an existing efficient online system of issuance of transport permits for introducing a manual layer where coal users were forced to apply for NOC (no objection certificate) with state mining officers”.
Armed with the government order, the network led by accused Suryakant Tiwari extorted ₹25 per tonne of transported coal.
According to the ED, he deployed his men in various regions to extort money from coal transporters and industrialists. “His team was physically coordinating with lower-level government functionaries and coal transporters and representatives of user companies,” it said.
“Since his employees were spread across the state, they maintained WhatsApp groups, Excel sheets of each coal delivery order and the extorted amounts, and shared them with Suryakant Tiwari, who in turn maintained detailed handwritten diaries of the incoming bribe amounts and their utilization for purchase of benami lands, payment of bribes, payments for political expenditure etc,” the agency informed.
ED officials said that this level of “systemic extortion” was not possible without the knowledge and active participation of the state machinery.
The racket collected around ₹540 crores in the last two years without being caught, indicating that all the accused were “acting in a concerted manner at the instructions of person(s) at the highest level, having command and control over the state machinery”.
The financial probe agency is investigating the entire gamut of transactions in relation to the extortion racket.
It analysed bank accounts, seized WhatsApp chats, and recording of the statements to corroborate the diary entries by Tiwari.
Officers Chaurasia and Vishnoi and others used their relatives to create benami assets, the agency said.
Land deals were done at minimum cheque amounts and a large amount of cash out of the extortion collection was infused to buy the assets.
Earlier, the ED had conducted searches at more than 75 locations including the mining departments at the district collector offices of Korba and Raigad and collected incriminating evidence.
It has also recorded statements of around 100 individuals.