The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Raipur Zonal Office, has provisionally attached movable and immovable assets valued at approximately Rs 38.21 crore. These assets belong to former IAS officer Niranjan Das, the then Excise Commissioner, and 30 other excise officials. Niranjan Das is accused of acquiring over Rs 18 crore in proceeds of crime, including monthly bribes of Rs 50 lakh.
The attachment of assets is part of the probe into the multi-crore Chhattisgarh Liquor Scam, which is estimated to have caused a revised loss exceeding Rs 2,800 crore to the state exchequer. The attached properties include immovable assets worth Rs 21.65 crore, such as luxury bungalows, flats, commercial shops, and agricultural lands. Additionally, movable assets worth Rs 16.57 crore, including high-value fixed deposits, bank balances, life insurance policies, equity shares, and mutual funds, have been seized.
Investigations by the ED have uncovered a criminal syndicate involving senior bureaucrats and political figures that allegedly took control of the Chhattisgarh Excise Department. Niranjan Das and Arun Pati Tripathi, the then MD of Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Limited (CSMCL), are accused of running a parallel excise system to generate illicit profits. Central to the scam was the “Part-B” scheme, which involved manufacturing and selling unaccounted country liquor through government shops using duplicate holograms and unregistered bottles.
