ED raids IAS officer, others in Jharkhand liquor ‘scam’ linked money laundering case

Ranchi, Oct 29 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday raided premises linked to IAS officer Vinay Kumar Choubey, some state government officials and a number of liquor businessmen and middlemen as part of a money laundering investigation into an alleged excise scam in poll-bound Jharkhand.

Officials said the searches are being undertaken at 15 premises in Ranchi and Raipur, the capital of neighbouring Chhattisgarh, after a criminal case was recently registered by the Jharkhand zonal office of the federal probe agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Teams of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) provided security to the ED teams.

The ED took cognisance of a September 7 FIR filed by the Chhattisgarh Police anti-corruption bureau (ACB) at Raipur naming Choubey, retired Chhattisgarh IAS officer Anil Tuteja, Anwar Dhebar, the elder brother of Raipur Mayor Aijaz Dhebar, Arunpati Tripathi, an Indian Telecom Service (ITS) officer and former special secretary of the Chhattisgarh excise department, and some others.

The premises of 1999-batch Jharkhand cadre IAS officer Choubey, currently the secretary of Jharkhand Panchayati Raj department, joint secretary of excise department of the state Gajendra Singh, liquor traders and linked persons are being searched, the officials said.

Choubey was the principal secretary to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and the excise secretary of the state during the implementation of the 2022 excise policy in the state.

The police FIR alleges that the Jharkhand liquor policy of 2022 was framed to illegally benefit liquor syndicates of the state leading to loss to the Jharkhand government to the tune of crores of rupees.

As per the police FIR, Tuteja, Dhebar, Tripathi and others formed a “syndicate” and conspired with Jharkhand government officials to amend the excise policy of that state.

They awarded tenders for Indian and foreign liquor supply in Jharkhand to syndicate members, thereby committing fraud and causing loss of crores of rupees to the state government between 2022 and 2023, the police complaint said.

The syndicate was also accused of selling unaccounted domestic liquor with duplicate holograms and unlawfully allotting supplies of foreign alcohol to companies close to them.

The syndicate fetched illegal commissions to the tune of crores of rupees from such firms, as per the FIR.

Dhebar and Tripathi, as per the police, met with the then Jharkhand excise secretary (Choubey) and other officials in January 2022. They proposed replacing the existing contract system in Jharkhand with a distribution model of Chhattisgarh which helped the syndicate to allegedly earn slush funds.

According to the plan, Dhebar, Tripathi, Choubey and Gajendra Singh made preparations to implement the new excise policy in Jharkhand by taking their seniors into confidence, noted the FIR.

A resolution was passed in the Jharkhand Assembly for the purpose and Tripathi was contracted as a consultant by the Hemant Soren government, it said.

Tripathi prepared a draft of the Indian and foreign liquor sales policy applicable in Chhattisgarh and presented the same to the Jharkhand government. Based on the draft, new excise rules in Jharkhand were notified and implemented, according to the FIR.

For this, Tripathi received Rs 1.25 crore from the Jharkhand government, the police alleged.

Under the patronage of Choubey and Gajendra Singh, in order to allot the tender for the liquor supply, placement agencies of Dhebar and his syndicate “manipulated” tendering norms and introduced a condition of having a minimum turnover of Rs 100 crore for two continuous financial years in the mandatory eligibility conditions for granting liquor wholesale licences, said the FIR.

The ED had arrested Tuteja, Dhebar, Tripathi and some others in the Chhattisgarh liquor “scam” linked money laundering case.

Jharkhand is currently in the midst of an assembly election campaign, with voting scheduled in two phases on November 13 and 20.