New Delhi: Senior bureaucrat Vinay Kumar Choubey’s name figured in the list of suspects whose properties were searched by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) Tuesday for alleged irregularities in the Jharkhand excise policy.
A 1999 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Jharkhand cadre, Choubey was the excise secretary when a new excise policy was implemented in the eastern state two years ago.
His career trajectory went up ever since he returned to his parent cadre in 2020 from central deputation. He was the chief electoral officer when Jharkhand went to polls in 2019. Choubey then rose to become principal secretary to former chief minister Hemant Soren in June 2021.
Nearly three years later, the senior civil servant followed Soren in resigning from his position soon after the ED took his former boss into custody on 31 January in an alleged land grab case. In a sign of his connections with the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) circles, Choubey was reinstated in the same position after Champai Soren took charge of the state in February.
At present, he is the principal secretary in the panchayati raj department.
Premises linked to Choubey and Jharkhand excise joint commissioner Gajendra Singh were among those whose properties were searched at 17 locations in Ranchi and Raipur.
The ED action stems from a Chhattisgarh Anti-Corruption Bureau’s First Information Report (FIR) in which Choubey and Singh were named along with Anil Tuteja, former joint secretary in the Chhattisgarh’s Industry and Commerce Department; Arun Pati Tripathi, former special secretary of the Chhattisgarh excise department; and Anwar Dhaber, the brother of Raipur mayor Aijaz Dhaber.
ThePrint has seen a copy of the Chhattisgarh ACB’s FIR.
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‘Chhattisgarh syndicate caused Rs 500 cr revenue loss’
The FIR filed on the complaint of Ranchi resident Vikash Singh, who alleged that the trio of Dhaber, Tuteja, and Tripathi hatched a conspiracy with Choubey and Singh to allot tenders for country liquor and Indian-made foreign liquor(IMFL) to companies known to a syndicate, causing loss to the state exchequer.
Importantly, Tuteja, Tripathi, and Anwar were booked in a similar case of irregularities in the Chhattisgarh’s excise policy during the previous Bhupesh Baghel government.
In January, ThePrint reported how the ED’s Raipur zonal office shared details of the alleged liquor cartel run in the state by the trio. The Chhattisgarh Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) booked them that month under Sections 7 and 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and Sections 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery), 471 (using forged documents as genuine), 120B (criminal conspiracy), and 420 (cheating) of IPC.
In the FIR related to Choubey, the complainant also alleged a nexus between these officials in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand on one hand and liquor manufacturers on the other to reap a commission from the increased price of foreign liquor.
Tuteja, Tripathi, and Anwar allegedly invited Choubey and Singh for a meeting in Raipur which took place between December 2021 and January 2022 and where Anwar and Tripathi convinced the civil servants to change the contractual system of liquor distribution in Jharkhand and adopt the Chhattisgarh model of liquor supply under which the state-owned Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Limited (CSMCL) was carrying out distribution, the complainant said.
He further submitted that the suggested policy changes were made by the then Hemant Soren government and implemented through a notification on 31 March 2022.
The complainant further alleged that the Jharkhand government paid Tripathi Rs 1.25 crore as consultancy fee.
The FIR stated that Choubey and Singh allegedly brought in a particular eligibility criterion of minimum Rs 100 crore annual turnover for the two years preceding the application in order to award tenders for supply of liquor and manpower to companies as part of Chhattisgarh syndicate.
It stated that as per the planned excise policy, placement agencies applying for supplying manpower were asked to deposit approximately Rs 50 crore in Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) for a total of 310 shops across the state along with bank deposits of Rs 11.28 crore on 28 March 2023.
The new policy also mandated other requirements such as companies applying for tender must have on average 1,000 employees whose provident funds were deposited in the last six months along with turnover of Rs 50 crore in the three years preceding the application—all of which were based on Chhattisgarh’s model of policy.
“The conditions were imposed according to the efficiency of the agencies working in Chhattisgarh and it was not possible for every company to participate in the tender process and hences the tenders for manpower supply went to Chhatisgarh-based Sumeet Facilities, Eagle Hunters Solutions and A to Z Infra Services whose owners further subcontracted the work to one Siddharth Singhania, who subsequently opened a new office in Ranchi supplied manpower to all companies alone,” the FIR further stated.
The FIR further alleged that instead of supplying stipulated manpower to companies based on the terms of the new contract, Singhania rather employed the same manpower already employed by contractors by extorting money from them.
Additionally, the ACB alleged that a new licence, 1A, was introduced on the line of FL10 A licence of Chhattisgarh and companies, such as Om Sai Beverages and Dishita Ventures, which were already supplying foreign liquor in Chhattisgarh, also got the right to supply both country made and foreign liquor in the state.
The FL10 A licence in Chhattisgarh allows licence holders to supply liquor by transporting it from CSBCL godowns to retail shops.
The FIR further claimed that the terms of the policy were further tweaked to award contracts of holograms, which were pasted on bottles of country liquor for branding purpose to Chhattisgarh-based companies.
In its assessment report which formed part of the ECIR, the Chhattisgarh ACB has noted that the the Jharkhand government incurred a revenue loss of nearly Rs 500 crore in the financial year 2022-2023, as it could collect only Rs 1,800 crore instead of estimated figure of Rs 2,300 crore.
Dhaber, Tuteja and Tripathi have been arrested by the ED for their alleged roles in the Chhattisgarh excise policy case.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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