A special court of Raipur on June 27 has rejected bail petition of former deputy secretary at Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister Office (CMO), Saumya Chaurasiya, a key accused in alleged coal levy scam of Chhattisgarh worth Rs 540 crore.
Saumya had filed a bail petition citing her daughter health status and had also attached a copy of latter’s medical report before the court, the special court however denied her a bail after hearing arguments of both the parties in the matter on Thursday evening.
Chaurasiya was arrested by the agencies perusing the investigation into the alleged scam in December, 2022, she has been in the judicial custody since then. Recently Saumya was interrogated by the the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) in remand and then produced before the court on June 18 from where she was sent into judicial remand till July 1.
Earlier the former deputy secretary of the Ex-Chief Minister, Bhupesh Baghel had also filed a bail plea before the Supreme Court, however the apex court had rejected her bail petition, imposing a fine of Rs one lakh on her for presenting wrong facts before the court in December last year.
Court extend remand of Jaiswal brothers
Meanwhile the special court has extended EOW’s remand of coal traders bothers Hemant and Chandrapraksh Jaiswal for three days. Both Chandrapraksh and Hemant will be in EOW’s remand till July.
The EOW had apprehended Hemant Jaiswal from Bilaspur and Chandraprakash alias Sanjay Jaiswal from Korba on June 13. The agency had claimed that the duo were involved in collecting levy and one of them is connected to Suryakant Tiwari, the alleged kingpin of the multi-crore scam.
Notably the EOW on June 18 had also nabbed as many as five people in connection with the case and alleged that the arrested accused were indulged in levy collection as part of the alleged coal scam and were associated with Tiwari.
Two of the arrested accused Moinuddin Kureshi and Roshan Kumar Singh are currently in EOW’s remand till June 28 while the other arrested accused, Rahul Kumar singh Parekh Kurre, and Virendra Jaiswal are in judicial remand till July1.
Alleged Coal Levy Scam
Notably, Enforcement Directorate began its probe into the matter in October 2022 and claimed to unearth a multi-crore coal levy scam in which illegal levy of Rs 25 was extorted for every ton of coal transported in the state by a cartel of senior bureaucrats, coal businessmen, politicians and middlemen.
ED alleged that the amendments made to induce a mandatory No Objection Certificate (NOC) by the district magistrate for the coal transporters led Suryakant Tiwari, the main kingpin to smoothly operate the extortion racket under which an extortion money of Rs25 per metric ton was fixed for the transporters and coal businessmen to acquire the said certificate.
Based on ED’s investigation the EOW had also registered a case against as many as 35 accused including Saumya Chaurasia, IAS, Ranu Sahu, Sameer Vishnoi, Suryakant Tiwari, former minister and Congress leader, Amarjit Bhagat, Congress MLA, Devendra Yadav, former MLA Chandrika Prasad Rai and others in connection with the case in January this year.
As of now many of the accused including kingpin Suryakant Tiwari, his uncle Lakshmikant Tiwari, Nikhil Chandrakar, Sunil Nayak, suspended Deputy Director of Mining Department, Shivshankar Nag, IAS Ranu Sahu, IAS Sameer Vishnoi, Saumya Chaurasiya and others are in custody of the agencies in connection with the case.
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