Team News Riveting
Raipur, April 21
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Sunday arrested retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Chhattisgarh cadre Anil Tuteja in connection with money-laundering in the Rs 2,000 crore alleged liquor scam that took place in the regime of the previous Congress government in Chhattisgarh.
He was produced in the local court of law on Sunday afternoon from where he was sent to judicial remand for a day. He will now be produced in the court on Monday.
The 2003-batch IAS officer will be the first from the elite All India Service to be arrested in connection with the liquor scam. Though in the fresh case registered by the ED, one or two IAS officers have also been named.
The federal agency had detained Tuteja from the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) office in Raipur on Saturday evening where he and his son Yash Tuteja had gone to record their statements in the same case. Tuteja was questioned and later taken into custody under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Yash Tuteja was allowed to leave after questioning.
The officer retired from service last year. He was last designated as joint secretary in the industry and commerce department of Chhattisgarh. The ED had filed a fresh money-laundering case in the alleged liquor scam case after the Supreme Court recently quashed its earlier FIR that was based on an Income Tax Department complaint. The apex court ruled there was no scheduled offence and hence the money laundering case does not stand.
The observation was made based on the probe conducted by the excise department allegedly at the behest of Tuteja.
The EOW registered FIR on January 17, about a month after the BJP defeated the incumbent Congress government in the assembly polls, and named 70 individuals and companies, including former excise minister Kawasi Lakhma, former chief secretary Vivek Dhand and others.
The ED has estimated the alleged “proceeds of crime” in the case at Rs 2,161 crore.
Money was “illegally” collected from “every” bottle of liquor sold in Chhattisgarh and evidence of “unprecedented” corruption and money laundering of Rs 2,000 crore generated by an alcohol syndicate led by Anwar Dhebar, the elder brother of Raipur Mayor and Congress leader Aijaz Dhebar, has been unearthed, the ED had alleged.
Anwar Dhebar, businessman Arvind Singh and Arunpati Tripathi, an Indian Telecom Service (ITS) officer and special secretary of the excise department, were arrested by the EOW after registering FIR. Anwar Dhebar and Tripathi were arrested by the ED as part of the quashed FIR too.
It has also been alleged by the ED in the past that “bribe” was collected from distillers in the state on a per liquor case basis procured from the CSMCL (state body for purchase and sale of liquor) and country liquor was being sold off-the-books.
“In this (country liquor) case, not even Rs 1 reached the state exchequer and all the sale proceeds were pocketed by the syndicate. The illegal liquor was sold from state-run shops only,” the agency had alleged.
