The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday arrested Saumya Chaurasia, who was a deputy chief secretary during the tenure of the previous Congress government in Chhattisgarh, in connection with an alleged liquor scam that took place between 2019 and 2022, The Indian Express reported.
The counsel for the central agency, Saurabh Kumar Pandey, told the newspaper that Chaurasia will be produced before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court in Raipur, after which further details of her alleged role will be placed on record.
The Chhattisgarh Anti-Corruption Bureau registered a first information report in the alleged liquor scam in January 2024 based on the Enforcement Directorate’s complaints.
The bureau alleged that a syndicate of bureaucrats and politicians during the tenure of former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel ran a parallel excise department, under which liquor was sold without any revenue going to the state exchequer.
The FIR accused 70 persons of involvement in the alleged scam, including former state Excise Minister Kawasi Lakhma, Special Secretary Arun Pati Tripathi and Indian Administrative Service officer Anil Tuteja.
They have been charged with corruption, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
In September, the Enforcement Directorate arrested former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s son, Chaitanya Baghel, in connection with the case.
In a chargesheet, the agency alleged that Chaitanya Baghel was the “controller and ultimate authority” of an “organised liquor syndicate” in the state and had personally handled about Rs 1,000 crore generated from the alleged scam.
In March, searches were conducted in 14 locations in Durg district linked to Chaitanya Baghel.
Chaurasia, a state administrative service officer who served as deputy chief secretary to Bhupesh Baghel, was earlier arrested by the ED in December 2022 in an alleged Rs 540-crore coal scam case. She was granted bail by the Supreme Court in May.
After the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in the state in 2023, Chhattisgarh’s Anti-Corruption Bureau in 2024 booked Chaurasia in three cases, including one related to disproportionate assets.
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