New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday said it has attached properties worth over ₹205 crore, including those of retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Anil Tuteja who was arrested last month, in connection with its money laundering probe into the alleged liquor scam case in Chhattisgarh.
The properties attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) include 14 assets of Tuteja worth ₹15.82 crore, 115 properties of Anwar Dhebar, elder brother of Raipur mayor and Congress leader Aijaz Dhebar, worth ₹116.16 crore, properties of one Vikash Agarwal alias Subbu worth ₹1.54 crore and 33 properties of another person, Arvind Singh, worth ₹12.99 crore, ED said in a statement.
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Besides, a property worth ₹1.35 crore of Arunpati Tripathi, an Indian Telecom Service officer and special secretary of the excise department, nine properties worth ₹28.13 crore of liquor businessman Trilok Singh Dhillon and jewellery worth ₹27.96 crore of Naveen Kedia — linked to the Durg-based Chhattisgarh Distillery Limited — were also attached, it added.
The total value of these assets, 18 movable and 161 immovable, is worth ₹205.49 crore.
A 2003-batch IAS officer, Tuteja was arrested on April 21 and the federal agency has described him as the “kingpin” of the liquor syndicate operating in Chhattisgarh.
The Supreme Court on April 8 quashed the PMLA proceedings against Tuteja and others in connection with the alleged irregularities worth ₹2,161 crore, saying that predicate offence was not established. ED’s previous probe, which started in 2022, was based on an income-tax complaint and did not form part of the scheduled offence, a requirement for the agency to go ahead with money laundering probes.
On April 9, however, as reported by HT, the federal agency filed a fresh case in the matter based on a first information report (FIR) filed by the Chhattisgarh police on January 17 this year. The fresh ECIR (enforcement case information report) —equivalent to an FIR — allows ED to reinvestigate the charges.
ED claimed in a statement issued last month that it has gathered evidence stating while Tuteja “was not officially a part of the excise department, yet he was actively involved with operations of this department.”
The complicit actions of Tuteja resulted in a massive loss to the state exchequer and filled the pockets of the beneficiaries of the liquor syndicate with over ₹2,100 crore illegal proceeds of crime, the agency has alleged.
Tuteja, who retired last year, was last designated as joint secretary in the industry and commerce department of Chhattisgarh.
In its fresh ECIR, ED has named all 70 accused booked by the Chhattisgarh police, including Tuteja, several Congress leaders, bureaucrats and businessmen. The police FIR came roughly a month after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unseated the Congress in the Chhattisgarh assembly polls, results of which were announced on December 3 last year.
To be sure, Chhattisgarh Police acted on the matter with the reference of ED, which sent a detailed probe report to local police after the elections.
The controversy originally arose from allegations of corruption within Chhattisgarh’s liquor industry, implicating officials and influential functionaries. ED alleged there were irregularities between 2019 and 2022, when officials of the state-run liquor retailer, the Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Ltd (CSMCL), took bribes from distillers. The then Congress government in the state accused the BJP-led Centre of using ED to target its leaders. The Centre defended the ED’s actions as upholding the law.
