ED Arrests Saumya Chaurasia, Dy Secretary to CM

     Raipur, December 02, 2022: In a major development, the Enforcement Directorate today arrested Saumya Chaurasia, a Deputy Secretary in the Chief Minister Secretariat.

      Chaurasia was produced before a local court in Raipur, which send the bureaucrat to 4 days ED remands.

      The action will further lead to confrontation between Congress government in Chhattisgarh and the Centre, as Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has termed this as a politically motivated action.

     Reacting to the ED and Income Tax Department actions, the Pradesh Congress Committee said the BJP led government at the Centre wanted to tarnish the popular image of the Bhupesh Baghel government of the state.

     The powerful bureaucrat has been arrested in money laundering cases.

      On October 29, 2022 controversial Congress leader Suryakant Tiwari reached Raipur district court to surrender and subsequently the court sent him to 12 days remand of the Enforcement Directorate for further investigation.

     ED was looking for him after conducting searches in multiple locations earlier in the month of October.

     The ED on October 13, 2022 had arrested the 2009-batch IAS Sameer Vishnoi and two others two days after the central agency raided premises of the senior officials, politicians and businessmen in the state.

     All the three are now sent to judicial remand by a Raipur local court and are currently lodged in Raipur Central Jail.

     The ED has also interrogated two other IAS officers, Raigarh Collector Ranu Sahu and IAS J P Mourya.

     At the time of raid Sameer Vishnoi was posted as CEO of the CHiPS and Managing Director of the State Cooperative Marketing Federation (Markfed).