Directorate of Enforcement (ED) vide Provisional Attachment Order No 02/2022 dated 09.12.2022 has provisionally attached movable and 91 immovable properties worth Rs 152.31 Crore belonging to Suryakant Tiwari (65 properties), Ms Saumya Chaurasia (21 properties), Deputy Secretary to CM of Chhattisgarh, Sameer Vishnoi IAS (5 properties), Sunil Agarwal & others. The properties include cash, jewellery, flats, coal Washeries and plots of land located in the State of Chhattisgarh.
The attached lands include following – · Agriculture lands admeasuring 63.38 acre in Hirri, Potiya and Sevati, Durg. · Agriculture lands admeasuring 10 acre in Rasni & Arang, Raipur. · Commercial land admeasuring 12 acre in Thakuraintola, Durg. · Farm House etc ED has conducted searches at more than 75 locations including the Mining Departments at DC Offices of Korba & Raighad and collected incriminating evidences. ED has recorded statements of around 100 individuals.
ED investigation revealed that as part of a grand conspiracy, Policy changes were made and Director Mining issued a Govt Order on 15.7.2020 to modify an existing efficient online system of issuance of transport permits, to introduce a manual layer where Coal users were forced to apply for NOC with State Mining officers. Armed with this government order, the extortion at the rate of Rs 25 per tonne of transported Coal, started in right earnest. Suryakant Tiwari was the main henchman at the ground level who deployed his employees in various regions to extort money from Coal Transporters & Industrialists and his team was physically coordinating with lower level government functionaries and Coal transporters & representatives of user companies.
Since his employees were spread across the State, they maintained WhatsApp groups, excel sheets of each Coal Delivery Order & the extorted amounts and shared them with Suryakant Tiwari, who in turn maintained detailed hand written Diaries of the incoming bribe amounts & their utilization for purchase of benami lands, payment of bribes, payments for political expenditure etc.
This kind of systemic extortion was not possible without the knowledge & active participation of the State machinery. The fact that it ran uninterrupted without a single FIR etc and collected around Rs 500 Crore in 2 years, clearly indicates that all the accused persons were acting in a concerted manner at the instructions of person(s) at the highest level, having command & control over the State machinery. ED is investigating the entire gamut of transactions in relation to the extortion racket. ED investigation has revealed that an amount of at least Rs 540 Crore has been extorted in the last 2 years.
ED has analyzed thousands of hand written Diary entries. ED has not merely relied on the Diary entries, but has done detailed investigation including Bank Account analysis, analysis of seized WhatsApp chats, recording of the Statements etc to corroborate the Diary Entries. ED has unravelled the modus operandi where influential members of the Extortion syndicate like Suryakant Tiwari, Saumya Chaurasia, Sameer Vishnoi etc have used their relatives to create benami assets. Land deals were done at minimum cheque amount and large amount of cash out of the extortion collection was infused to buy the assets. Most of the times, the benamidaars did not even have the minimum capital to do the land deals.
Then small unsecured loans were taken from multiple people on payment of cash to create capital to do land deals. Further, after the IT raids on 30th June 2022, in panic to avoid attachment by IT/ED, large number of assets were sold to Sunil Agarwal as he was not covered in the IT searches. To prevent further alienation of the tainted assets, provisional attachment order has been issued. Earlier, in this case, ED had arrested Sameer Vishnoi IAS, Sunil Agarwal & Laxmikant Tiwari on 13.10.2022. ED arrested Suryakant Tiwari on 30.10.2022. On 2.12.2022, ED arrested Ms Saumya Chaurasia. On 9.12.22, ED has filed prosecution complaint against Suryakant Tiwari, Sameer Vishnoi IAS, Laxmikant Tiwari, Sunil Agarwal & others before the PMLA Special Court Raipur. Ms Saumya Chaurasia is presently in the custody of ED. Further, investigation is going on.
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