Chhattisgarh: Court issues notices to two Congress MLAs, seven others in coal levy scam case

A special court in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur has issued notices to two Congress MLAs and seven others accused in a money laundering case related to an alleged coal levy scam.

The court has asked the alleged accused to appear before it on October 25.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had filed the second supplementary chargesheet in the case in the court of 4th Additional District and Sessions Judge Ajay Singh Rajput last month naming 11 persons, including Congress legislators Devendra Singh Yadav and Chandradev Prasad Rai and IAS officer Ranu Sahu, as accused, special public prosecutor Saurabh Kumar Pande said.

The special court on Saturday registered the second supplementary chargesheet and issued notices to nine of the 11 accused, as Sahu and one Nikhil Chandrakar were already arrested in the case, he said.

Besides legislators Yadav and Rai, Congress leaders RP Singh and Vinod Tiwari are also among the nine accused.

As sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) invoked in this case are cognisable and non-bailable, the nine accused, who have not yet been arrested, need to obtain anticipatory bail, Pande said.

The court may issue bailable or non-bailable warrants against them if they do not appear during the hearing, he added.

The ED’s investigation relates to the alleged scam, in which an illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne was being extorted for every tonne of coal transported in Chhattisgarh by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen.

The ED in its second supplementary chargesheet alleged that Sahu, who served as the collector of Korba district during the period of the scam, facilitated the collection of illegal levy amounts from the coal transporters and District Mineral Fund (DMF) contracts by Suryakant Tiwari and his associates, and received huge bribes from them.

Yadav, an MLA from Bhilai Nagar, had allegedly received approximately Rs 3 crore in proceeds of the crime generated by the coal cartel for the Khairagarh bypolls (in April 2022) and for other political and personal expenses, the probe agency has claimed.

According to the ED, Bilaigarh MLA Rai allegedly received Rs 46 lakh for election funding, political expenses and personal gifts, while Congress leaders Tiwari and Singh had received approximately Rs 1.87 crore and Rs 2.01 crore respectively for political and personal expenses.

The first chargesheet in the case was filed on December 9 last year, in which IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, businessman Sunil Agrawal, Suryakant Tiwari and his uncle Laxmikant Tiwari, all arrested earlier by the ED, were named as accused.