On the evening of 16th December (Tuesday), Soumya Chaurasia was taken into custody by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). She served as the Chief Medical Officer’s (CMO) deputy secretary under the previous Congress government and is currently a suspended state administrative service official. The move was in relation to the Chhattisgarh liquor scam. On 17th December, she will appear before a special court.
During Bhupesh Baghel’s term as chief minister, Chaurasia worked in the CMO as Deputy Secretary. She was apprehended in 2022 and is also a suspect in the coal levy scam. The Supreme Court granted her interim bail in May, and she was released earlier this year. The ED previously nabbed Congress MLA and former excise minister Kawasi Lakhma on 15th January and Chaitanya Baghel, son of Bhupesh Baghel, on 18th July. The actions are part of a money-laundering probe.
According to the ED, Lakhma received substantial sums of money while serving as the excise minister, making him the primary beneficiary of the spoils of crime. It further stated that Chaitanya personally handled about 1,000 crore from the fraud and managed the group responsible for the liquor scam.
The agency added that the scam transpired during the Bhupesh Baghel-led government between 2019 and 2022. It cost the state exchequer over 2,500 crore while providing illicit profits to members of this syndicate. According to the inquiry, the syndicate was responsible for the sale of unaccounted-illegal liquor, amounting to 30–40% of the state’s total liquor sales.
Furthermore, the syndicate would keep their cut and send the money for the “benefit of the Political executives and electioneering.” ED mentioned the loot “caused a massive loss to the State Exchequer and loss of central government taxes and, in general, loot from the local business community.”
ED said during the investigation, the department found the syndicate was collecting a large number of bribes from liquor suppliers. They also collected bribes from other departments, including the food horticulture department and the PWD Department. ED said the retrieved messages from the seized devices showed how deep-rooted the syndicate was in different state departments.
ED said, “It was found that the corruption was systemic and so deep-rooted with multiple associates in different State Departments, that the accused persons and syndicate were forced to maintain detailed logs and accounts of the collected money lest there may be pilferage from the crime money itself.”
On 13th June, the agency attached 3 properties worth 6.15 crore in connection with the scam. Significantly, one of the properties is the Congress Bhawan in Sukma, the office of the Congress party. The other two properties are residential houses belonging to jailed Congress MLA and former minister Kawasi Lakhma and his son Harish Lakhma. As per the ED, the three houses have been built using Proceeds of Crime (POC) and have therefore been attached.
