New Delhi, Dec 2, 2022: On Friday, the Enforcement Directorate arrested a top Chhattisgarh bureaucrat with regard to a coal scam case.
The arrested official has been identified as Soumya Chaurasia who serves as the Deputy Secretary in Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s government.
The arrested government official had been the radar of central agencies in an illegal mining case and the Income Tax Department raided properties attached to her prior to searches by the ED. She was placed under arrest after she was summoned for questioning by the ED.
According to sources, central probe agencies had questioned Soumya several times in the past two months.
The ED carried out search operations and made arrests under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002, in connection with a scam wherein an illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne was allegedly extorted for each tonne of coal that was transported in Chhattisgarh by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen politicians and middlemen.
The ED initiated a money laundering probe on the basis of an FIR lodged by the Income Tax Department. Sources say that the ED has been investigating the entire gamut of this conspiracy including the main kingpin, the role of senior officials who facilitated this scam with impunity and the beneficiaries of the illegal proceeds of crime.
CM Baghel on Sunday issued warnings to central probe agencies and alleged ‘violence and intimidation’ by the officials while carrying out their duties. He stated that complaints of ED and IT officials’ resorting to violence were reaching him and the same was unacceptable.
