Team News Riveting
Raipur, December 10
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached the property of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Sameer Vishnoi and others in connection with Chhattisgarh’s infamous coal levy scam.
Besides the 2009-batch IAS officer of Chhattisgarh cadre, the economic intelligence wing had arrested Deputy Secretary in the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Office Soumya Chaurasia, coal trader and “main kingpin” in the case Suryakant Tiwari, businessman Sunil Agrawal and Tiwari’s uncle Laxmikant Tiwari.
The ED investigation had allegedly revealed a massive scam in which an illegal levy of Rs 25 was being extorted for every tonne of coal transported in Chhattisgarh by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen.
In a statement issued in New Delhi, the ED said flats, jewellery, cash, coal washeries and plots belonging to the four have been attached in the alleged coal levy scam money laundering case. The federal probe agency issued a provisional order for attachment of some movable and 91 immovable properties on Friday under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
“The properties include cash, jewellery, flats, coal washeries and plots of land located in Chhattisgarh,” the ED said, adding that the assets were worth a total Rs 152.31 crore. Of the properties, five assets belonged to the IAS officer, Sameer Vishnoi, who had been suspended by the state government.
The frozen assets include 65 properties belonging to Suryakant Tiwari and 21 properties of Soumya Chaurasia.
