The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday filed a prosecution complaint against former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s son, Chaitanya Baghel, in connection with an alleged liquor scam.
The ED arrested Chaitanya on July 18, after which he was sent to judicial custody.
“The prosecution complaint runs into 99 pages, and there are another 7,039 pages of documents related to it. One hard disc, containing digitial and other evidence, has also been submitted,” ED sources said.
Speaking to The Indian Express, ED counsel Saurabh Kumar Pandey alleged, “The accused (Chaitanya) has played a role in money laundering. He has received proceeds of crime, and through banking channels, he has used it for his own business ventures. We have found evidence for this, which has been submitted before the court.”
The liquor scam is alleged to have taken place between 2019 and 2022, when Chhattisgarh was ruled by a Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government. In the case, a syndicate of senior state bureaucrats, politicians, and excise department officials are accused of facilitating a parallel system of selling liquor, under which no money comes to the state exchequer. This allegedly caused the government a loss of Rs 2,161 crore.
The ED registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in April 2024, following an FIR registered by Chhattisgarh’s Economic Offences Wing/Anti-Corruption Bureau (EOW/ACB).
According to the ED, Chaitanya was implicated by the statement of one Laxmi Narayan Bansal alias Pappu. Pappu claimed that he handled over Rs 1,000 crore in proceeds from the liquor scam in association with Chaitanya. According to Pappu, he would collect the funds from one person and then allegedly hand them over to former Congress treasurer Ram Gopal Agarwal, all while coordinating with Chaitanya.
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The ED has also alleged that money made illegally from the scam was used to build Chaitanya’s ‘Vitthal Green Project’ through his company, Baghel Developers.
After his son’s arrest, Bhupesh Baghel said the arrest had been carried out without any prior notice or inquiry. He claimed the arrest was politically motivated because he had opposed an Adani coal mining project in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district. “This is happening clearly because my party and I raised the issue of trees being felled,” Baghel said, alleging the cutting down of thousands of trees in connection with the project.
Criticising central agencies, Baghel pointed out that Pappu Bansal had a court-issued non-bailable warrant against him, but he continues to roam freely.
Some of those arrested in connection with the alleged liquor scam so far are former excise minister Kawasi Lakhma; Anwar Dhebar, who was the alleged mastermind of the scam and the brother of former Raipur mayor Aijaz Dhebar; retired IAS officer Anil Tuteja, then a joint secretary in Chhattisgarh; and ITS Arun Pati Tripathi, then special secretary in the Commerce and Industry Department and the MD of CG State Marketing Corporation Ltd.
