The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached assets worth Rs 61.20 crore of Chaitanya Baghel, the son of former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, in connection with the agency’s investigation into an alleged liquor scam.
The scam is alleged to have taken place between 2019 and 2022, while the Congress government under Bhupesh Baghel’s leadership was in power. Investigators allege that during this time, a syndicate of senior state bureaucrats, politicians, and Excise Department officials facilitated a “parallel” system of selling liquor that led to a loss of over Rs 2,500 crore to the exchequer.
Chaitanya Baghel’s assets that were seized by the ED include immovable properties in the form of 364 pieces of residential and agricultural land worth Rs 59.96 crore and movable properties in the form of bank balance and fixed deposits worth Rs 1.24 crore, the agency said in a statement.
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“Chaitanya Baghel utilised proceeds of crime (POC) generated from the scam for the development of his real estate project, ‘Vitthal Green’, under his proprietorship concern, M/s Baghel Developers. The present attachment of Rs 61.20 crore is in continuation of earlier attachments of immovable properties valued at approximately Rs 215 crore,” the ED said.
In September this year, the central agency submitted a supplementary prosecution complaint before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Raipur, alleging that Chaitanya personally handled around Rs 1,000 crore generated from the alleged liquor scam. The ED arrested him on July 18 this year, and he remains in judicial custody
Former CM Baghel had said at the time that his son’s arrest was made without any prior notice or inquiry and that it was politically motivated because he had opposed an Adani coal mining project in Raigarh district.
“This is happening clearly because my party and I raised the issue of trees being felled,” Baghel said, alleging that 5,000 trees were cut overnight in the presence of forest officials for the mining project.
