PMLA court issues notices to two Chhattisgarh Congress MLAs, six others in coal levy scam case

RAIPUR: A special PMLA court in Chhattisgarh capital has issued notices to nine accused, including two Congress legislators, in connection with the coal scam case, as the court registered the second supplementary prosecution complaint on Saturday.
The Special PMLA court of Ajay Singh Rajput issued notices to MLA Devendra Singh Yadav from Bhilai in Durg district and MLA Chandradev Rai from Bilaigarh constituency in Raipur district and six others.
According to Dr Saurabh Kumar Pande, Advocate and Special Public Prosecutor for the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Raipur, there were a total of 11 accused in the scam, out of which two, including IAS Ranu Sahu and Nikhil Chandrakar have already been arrested in the scam.
State administrative service officer Saumya Chaurasia, a powerful deputy secretary in the chief minister's office, is already in judicial custody in connection with the coal scam. The Special PMLA court has scheduled the next hearing for October 25.
In August, the ED named two Congress MLAs and one IAS officer in its second supplementary charge sheet in a money laundering case related to the coal levy scam in Chhattisgarh. A total of eleven people have been named in the charge sheet so far, including IAS officer Ranu Sahu, who is currently in judicial custody.
The ED counsel stated that the 280-page charge sheet was filed before Special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court judge Ajay Singh Rajput.
In May, the ED seized 90 immovable assets, including luxurious vehicles, jewelry, and cash worth over Rs 51 crore belonging to MLA Yadav, MLA Rai, and others allegedly involved in the scam.
The ED also charged Piyush Sahu, the brother of IAS Ranu Sahu, who was the Korba collector at the time of the scam. Other key accused include Nikhil Chandrakar and Manish Upadhayay, who is close to the kingpin Suryakant Tiwari.
The first charge sheet in the case was filed in the special PMLA court in Raipur on December ninth last year, in which IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, businessman Sunil Agrawal, Suryakant Tiwari, and his uncle Laxmikant Tiwari, all previously arrested by the ED, were named as accused. Later, the first supplementary charge sheet was filed on January 30 this year, in which Saumya Chaurasia and six others, including two mining officers, were named as accused. Chaurasia was arrested in December last year.
In December 2022, the ED arrested Chaurasia in the case and alleged that Chaurasia's WhatsApp chats, retrieved by the Income Tax Department, revealed that she was sharing all the government's confidential information with Tiwari, who was not even attached to her office for any official work.
The ED counsel told TOI that Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) are cognizable and non-bailable. Therefore, the nine accused, who have not yet been arrested, need to obtain anticipatory bail, or else the court will send them to jail if they remain present in the court during the hearing.
The court may issue bailable or non-bailable warrants against the nine accused in case they do not appear during the hearing, he said.