New Delhi, Dec 31: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday said it has provisionally attached fresh assets worth over ₹100 crore in connection with its probe into an alleged ₹2,800-crore liquor scam in Chhattisgarh during the previous Congress government.
According to the federal agency, the attached properties belong to former Chhattisgarh excise commissioner Niranjan Das, 30 other excise officials, and three major liquor distilleries operating in the state. The action is part of an ongoing investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
In a statement, the ED alleged that a “criminal syndicate” involving senior bureaucrats, politicians and private players had “completely hijacked” the state excise department between 2019 and 2023 to generate massive illegal proceeds.
The provisionally attached assets include 78 immovable properties such as luxury bungalows, flats in premium residential complexes, commercial shops and agricultural land, along with 197 movable assets comprising bank balances, fixed deposits, life insurance policies, equity shares and mutual fund investments.
Assets worth ₹38.21 crore were attached in the names of Das, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, and 30 other excise officials, the agency said. “This attachment highlights the deep-rooted complicity of the very officials tasked with protecting state revenue,” the ED added.
Another set of properties worth ₹68.16 crore belongs to three Chhattisgarh-based distilleries — Chhattisgarh Distilleries Ltd, Bhatia Wine Merchants Pvt Ltd and Welcome Distilleries Pvt Ltd — the agency said.
The ED claimed that Das and Arun Pati Tripathi, then managing director of the Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Ltd, spearheaded a “parallel” excise system that bypassed official controls to generate illegal earnings. The agency recently filed a supplementary prosecution complaint on December 26, detailing what it described as “massive corruption” within the excise department between 2019 and 2023, leading to proceeds of crime amounting to ₹2,883 crore.
So far, 81 people have been named as accused in the ED’s chargesheets, including Chaitanya Baghel, son of former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel; former excise minister Kawasi Lakhma; retired IAS officer and former joint secretary Anil Tuteja; and former deputy secretary in the chief minister’s office Saumya Chaurasia. Private individuals, including Anwar Dhebar — brother of Raipur mayor and Congress leader Aijaz Dhebar — and the three distilleries have also been named.
The agency alleged that excise officials were paid a fixed commission of ₹140 per liquor case for allowing the sale of unaccounted liquor in their jurisdictions. Das alone is alleged to have acquired more than ₹18 crore in proceeds of crime, receiving a monthly bribe of around ₹50 lakh for facilitating the scam.
According to the ED, the syndicate generated illegal earnings through multiple channels, including inflated commissions, unaccounted liquor sales, cartelisation among distillers and the misuse of special licences to extract commissions from foreign liquor manufacturers.
The probe was initiated on the basis of an FIR registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau and Economic Offences Wing in Raipur. The ED said the investigation has exposed a “deep-rooted conspiracy” spanning the administrative and political hierarchy, resulting in significant losses to the state exchequer.
