The Chhattisgarh High Court has declined to grant interim relief to retired IAS Alok Sharma, involved in 1000 crore Bilaspur Scam Case along with other high ranked officers, challenging the transfer of Investigation from authorities at Raipur to New Delhi by the competent authority.
The bench comprising Chief Justice P. R. Ramachandra Menon and Justice Parth Prateem Sahu was hearing a petition filed by retired IAS Alok Shukla challenging the transfer of the investigation from authorities at Raipur to New Delhi by the competent authority under the Provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Advocate Arshdeep Singh, appearing for Shukla submitted that the petitioner was virtually being harassed, absolutely without any legally and sustainable materials. He further submitted that despite the fact that all the infrastructure is available at Raipur, the investigation has been sought to be shifted to Delhi and the Petitioner has been required to be present before the authority concerned in Delhi, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic period, which is only to harass the Petitioner.
Assistant Solicitor General however submitted that “the idea and understanding of the Petitioner as to scope of the provisions of the Act is quite wrong and misconceived.” He further pointed out that the Authority who was issued the impugned order is competent in all respects, by virtue of the specific provisions contained in the statute. Moreover the petitioner had filed the petition only to stall the proceedings.
He further submitted that though the petitioner has been granted anticipatory bail, however the Court has directed him to cooperate in the investigation. Moreover, only ‘summons’ have been issued and by virtue of the specific observation made by the Court while granting the Anticipatory Bail, it is for the Petitioner to appear before the authority concerned pursuant to the summons and to co-operate with the investigation, submitted the Assistant Solicitor General.
The matter has been adjourned for 2 weeks.
The High Court of Chhattisgarh had on Jan 30, this year, directed CBI to register FIR against former Chief Secretaries Vivek Dhand and Sunil Kujur, former ACS M.K. Raut, Alok Shukla, B.L. Agrawal, Satish Pandey, P. Soti, Shri Rajesh Tiwari, Ashok Tiwari, Herman Khalkho, M.L. Pandey and Pankaj Verma all accused of involved into one thousand crore rupees for creating fake institutions and siphoned hundreds of crore in fake accounts. Some of the officers have retired while others have been dismissed on account of corruption charges.
The Court had noted in its order, that accused persons had formed a society by the name State Resource Center based in Mana and Physical Referral Rehabilitation Centre (PRRC) for the welfare of disabled individuals, but actually it existed only on papers.
“Despite the Bank Accounts of the employees throughout the State having been linked through their respective Aadhar Cards, such fake employees are shown to be paid in cash, only on papers in a planned and organized manner just to siphon hundreds of crores of rupees,” the court had said.
Read the order here;
WPCR291-2030.06.20-India Legal Bureau