Raipur. The Special Investigation Team (ACB-EOW) in the Chhattisgarh coal scam today (Thursday) presented a supplementary challan against two accused Manish Upadhyay and Rajnikant Tiwari in the Special Court of Raipur. This challan includes a detailed report of 2000 pages, a summary of 25 pages and a pen drive. The next hearing of the case will be on December 5.
Action has been taken against accused Manish Upadhyay and Rajnikant Tiwari under sections 120B, 384, 420 and sections 7, 7A, 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act for illegal coal levy collection. It is noteworthy that Rajnikant Tiwari is the elder brother of Suryakant Tiwari, who is already in jail.
Recovery through syndicate
ACB-EOW said in its challan that Manish and Rajnikant were part of the coal scam syndicate and used to collect the illegal extortion money and send it to other members. During the investigation, the team has also found important documents related to the coal scam. The illegal earnings have been invested in movable and immovable properties, and both the accused have been found to have deep connections with other scamsters.
Know what is the 570 crore coal scam case
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid in Chhattisgarh revealed illegal coal levy collection of Rs 570 crore. ED claims that the then director of the Mineral Department, IAS Sameer Bishnoi, had issued an order on July 15, 2020 to make the online permit for coal transportation offline, so that recovery could be made from the traders. At the same time, coal trader Suryakant Tiwari is considered to be the mastermind of this scam, in which according to ED, suspended Deputy Secretary Saumya Chaurasia had a hand.
According to ED, Suryakant Tiwari had formed a syndicate to collect illegal money at the rate of Rs 25 per tonne. Peat passes and transport passes were issued to traders only after collecting illegal money from them from the Mineral Department.
The investigation of this case is going on and action is being taken against the concerned officials and traders. Apart from Saumya Chaurasia, Suryakant Tiwari, coal washery operator Sunil Agarwal, IAS Sameer Bishnoi, IAS Ranu Sahu and many other accused were arrested in this case.
