The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Saturday arrested IAS officer Ranu Sahu in connection with the alleged coal levy scam.
Ms. Sahu — a Chhattisgarh-cadre IAS officer of the 2010 batch who is currently posted as the Director of the State Agriculture Department — is accused of money laundering and receiving kickbacks, Saurabh Kumar Pande, ED’s counsel, said. These allegations were refuted by her lawyer, Faisal Rizvi.
The development was preceded by raids at her premises in Raipur. The ED calls it “a massive scam in which an illegal levy of ₹25 was being extorted for every tonne of coal transported in Chhattisgarh by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen”.
Ms. Sahu, who has served in mineral-rich districts such as Korba and Raigarh, is the second IAS officer from the State to be arrested in connection with PMLA violations. Last year, 2009 batch IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi was arrested, as was Chhattisgarh Administrative Service (CAS) officer Saumya Chaurasia in connection with the same case.
Ms. Sahu was produced in a Raipur court following her arrest and Mr. Pande said that she had been remanded in ED custody for three days.
Mr. Pande said that the arrested bureaucrat was directly in touch with Suryakant Tiwari, a coal businessman and the alleged kingpin of the coal scam and that she had received a kickback of ₹5.52 crore that she had invested in some property. The ED had provisionally attached this property earlier, but Mr. Rizvi said that his client and her family members had bought the property in 2019, before the alleged kickbacks were received according to the ED.
“So far, Ranu Sahu has cooperated with the ED. Since January 2023, she had not been called for investigation and no new evidence has been brought up by ED,” Mr. Rizvi said.
On Friday, the ED had conducted searches at the premises of the IAS officer, a senior Congress politician and others in Raipur, Bilaspur and Korba. Drawing a distinction between the other raids and one at the premises belonging to Ms. Sahu, Mr. Pande said that all other raids were conducted in connection with another money laundering case being probed by the ED, one that was registered earlier this year.
‘Eye on the mines’
In a related development, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel described the ED and IT as two wings of the “BJP”. Mr. Baghel also alleged that continuous raids were happening in Chhattisgarh because their friends [implying BJP-led Centre] were eyeing the mines of the mineral-rich State. “If the most number of raids have been reported anywhere, it is Chhattisgarh. The number [MLAs in the 90-member Chhattisgarh Assembly] we have is 71. The way they tried to break away [MLAs] in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, they cannot do that here. The continuous raids that are happening show that their friends have an eye on the mines of Chhattisgarh and the government of Chhattisgarh is standing in between,” he said.
Hitting back at the statement, former CM and senior BJP leader Raman Singh questioned that if there was no scam, why was the director of mines [Director, Geology, and Mining, meaning Mr. Vishnoi] in prison. He also questioned the role of the Chief Minister in the episode.
“Director (Mines) is the one making the policy. The director alone cannot do anything; the Mineral Department belongs to the Chief Minister. If the director is accused of any crime, found guilty, then the Chief Minister’s consent will have to be accounted for,” he said.
