Raipur:

The Enforcement Directorate has arrested retired Chhattisgarh IAS officer Anil Tuteja in connection with an alleged liquor scam linked money laundering case in the state, official sources said on Sunday.

The federal agency had detained the 2003 batch officer from the Economic Offences Wing (EOW)/Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) office in Raipur on Saturday where the bureaucrat and his son Yash Tuteja had gone to record their statement in the same case.

The IAS officer was later taken into custody under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is expected to be produced before a magistrate seeking his remand, the sources said.

The officer retired from service last year.

The ED had filed a fresh money laundering case in the alleged liquor scam case after the Supreme Court recently quashed its earlier FIR that was based on an Income Tax Department complaint.

The agency shared details of its probe in the case with the state EOW/ACB seeking registration of a FIR and once they filed a FIR, the ED registered a new money laundering case taking cognisance of that complaint.

Money was “illegally” collected from “every” bottle of liquor sold in Chhattisgarh and evidence of “unprecedented” corruption and money laundering of Rs 2,000 crore generated by an alcohol syndicate led by Anwar Dhebar, the elder brother of Raipur Mayor Anwar Dhebar, has been unearthed, the ED had alleged. 

New Delhi:

The phone used by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal two years ago, when the alleged liquor scam was happening, is missing, sources in the Enforcement Directorate have said. When asked about it, the Chief Minister has said that he does not know where it is, sources said, quoting him. This, sources said would be the 171st phone, presumably containing relevant data in the Delhi liquor case that has gone missing. Earlier 170 such phones — belonging to 36 accused — could not be located, the ED has claimed.

Eventually, the agency managed to locate 17 phones from which they recovered data and pieced the case together, the ED has mentioned in its chargesheet in which senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia has been named as an accused.

Investigators have alleged that the rest of the phones have been broken to destroy evidence. So far, phones and laptops have provided the maximum amount of evidence in the case, the agency had said in the chargesheet.

But the maximum number of accused had changed thei phones and laptops between May 2022 and August 2022, the agency has said.

AAP has scoffed at the claims. Sources in the party alleged that the investigation of the Enforcement Directorate “is conducted from the BJP office”. The Enforcement Directorate, they alleged, is the “political partner of the BJP”.

Mr Kejriwal, arrested late on Thursday evening, si being questioned by the ED. He will be in the custody of the agency till March 28.

The Delhi Chief Minister has been discharging his duties from the ED lock-up, his party has claimed. On Sunday, he had issued his first order since arrest regarding drinking water and drainage in the national capital, Delhi minister Atishi said.

ED sources, though, questioned the claim, saying Mr Kejriwal has not been given a computer or paper in the lock-up.

For the arrested leaders of AAP, Holi would be a dismal event that they would celebrate from behind the bars.