Raipur. Anwar Dhebar, the main mastermind of Chhattisgarh’s famous liquor scam, did not get any relief from the Supreme Court. In the hearing of the case today, the Supreme Court rejected Anwar’s bail plea. Let us tell you that 22 excise officers accused in this scam were recently suspended by the government. All of them are accused of being involved in the liquor scam syndicate. These officers had earned 88 crores.
The Income Tax Department had filed a petition in Delhi’s Tis Hazari Court on May 11, 2022 against former IAS Anil Tuteja, his son Yash Tuteja and the then Deputy Secretary of the CM Secretariat, Saumya Chaurasia, in the then Bhupesh government, stating that a game of unaccounted money of bribery, illegal brokerage is going on in Chhattisgarh. In this, Anwar Dhebar, brother of Raipur Mayor Ejaz Dhebar, does illegal recovery. On the basis of a petition filed in Delhi’s Tis Hazari Court, ED had registered a case under PMLA Act on November 18, 2022. On the basis of documents received from the Income Tax Department, after investigation, ED had mentioned the matter of liquor scam of Rs 2161 crore in the charge sheet presented in the court.
ED told in its charge sheet how a large-scale scam was done in the Excise Department through the criminal syndicate of Anwar Dhebar, brother of Ejaz Dhebar. ED said in the charge sheet that in 2017, the Excise Policy was amended and provision was made to sell liquor through CSMCL, but after 2019, liquor scam kingpin Anwar Dhebar got Arunpati Tripathi appointed as MD of CSMCL. After that, corruption was done through a syndicate of officials, businessmen and people with political influence, which led to a scam of Rs 2161 crore. In this case, ED arrested Kawasi Lakhma on January 15.
It is worth noting that on March 13, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had presented a 3,841-page challan in the Special Court in the liquor scam case, in which 21 others including jailed former Excise Minister Kawasi Lakhma were made accused. It includes the names of Kawasi Lakhma, Anwar Dhebar, Anil Tuteja, Trilok Singh Dhillon, Chhattisgarh Distiller, Welcome Distiller, Top Security, Om Sai Beverage, Dishita Venture, Nest Gen Power, Bhatia Wine Merchant and Siddharth Singhania among others.
