Team News Riveting
Raipur, November 10
A special court will pronounce its order on Friday on the bail plea of suspended Indian Administrative Service (IAS) of Chhattisgarh Sameer Vishnoi and two others arrested in coal scam and money laundering case.
The 2009-batch IAS officer was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case along with businessman Sunil Agrawal of the Indramani group and one Laxmikant Tiwari on October 13. The officer along with the other two were on a 14 days judicial custody and were locked in the Raipur Central Jail.
As the custody ended today, they were produced before the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court of Ajay Singh Rajput. The ED also produced Suryakant Tiwari after his 12 days remand ended. The federal agency claimed Suryakant is the kingpin of the Chhattisgarh coal scam.
The state government had suspended Vishnoi on October 27, two weeks after his arrest.
Vishnoi, an alumnus of IIT Kanpur, is currently posted as the CEO of the Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society. He is also the ex-officio Joint Secretary of Electronics and Information Technology and Director, Geology, and had held the Mining department besides working as MD, Chhattisgarh State Minerals Development Corporation.
The bail plea of the IAS officer, from whose residence ED claimed to have seized four kg gold and Rs 47 lakh cash besides diamond, would come up for order on Friday. Vishnoi and other two had applied for bail. The three were later sent to jail in one day judicial custody.
Suryakant Tiwari was also sent to jail in one day judicial custody as the court did not grant further custodial remand demanded by ED. A legal point raised by defence lawyers related to a Karnataka court order related to Tiwari extended the proceeding for a day as the ED lawyers had not come prepared on the subject.
