Chhattisgarh coal-levy ‘scam’: 3 bureaucrats among six accused walk out of jail after SC relief

Raipur: Two days after being granted interim bail by the Supreme Court in the Chhattisgarh coal-levy scam case, two suspended IAS officers and a former deputy secretary in the chief minister’s office walked out of jail on Saturday. Defence counsel Faizal Rizvi told reporters that Sameer Vishnoi and Ranu Sahu, both IAS officers, and Saumya Chaurasia, a deputy secretary in the CMO during the previous Bhupesh Baghel government, and three others were released from Raipur central jail. The SC has granted interim bail to eight persons, of whom two individuals – Suryakant Tiwari and Nikhil Chandrakar – have not been released (due to other pending cases), he said. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has been probing the money laundering angle in the alleged coal-levy scam since 2022, had arrested Vishnoi in October 2022 and Chaurasia in December the same year. The central agency had taken Sahu into custody in July 2023.

Rizvi said the bureaucrat trio has been granted interim bail in the two cases related to the alleged coal-levy scam, one each registered by the ED and the state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). A Supreme Court bench of Justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta on Thursday imposed several conditions on the accused while granting them interim bail and asked the state government to generate confidence among the witnesses and ensure their protection. The SC has directed Sahu, Vishnoi and Chaurasia not to stay in Chhattisgarh till further orders, except when they are required to be present before the investigating agency or the trial court. “They are also directed to furnish the addresses of their stay outside the state of Chhattisgarh to the jurisdictional police station within one week of their release,” the bench has ordered. According to investigative agencies, an illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne was being extorted for every tonne of coal transported in the state by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen (during the previous Congress government). A syndicate comprising private individuals like Tiwari and state government functionaries, including Chaurasia, Vishnoi and mining officers, with political backing, allegedly made policy changes concerning mineral transportation. As per hand diaries, Rs 540 crore was extorted in cash by the coal cartel between July 2020 and June 2022.