A day after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) alleged ₹1,000 crore scam in state-run liquor retailer TASMAC, the Tamil Nadu government is gearing up to take on the investigation agency legally. The state government is all set to challenge the probe agency in the court like it did in the sand mining case.
Excise Minister V. Senthil Balaji, on Friday, said the ED’s ₹1,000 crore scam claim has no basis and it was a generalised allegation. “The government was prepared to face the matter legally,” Balaji said.
Stating that the government is acting as per the procedure laid by the earlier governments in the state and there was no scope for irregularities as the tender process was transparent, he asserted: “The liquor procurement is on the basis of the last three months and last-month sales and its average. No concession is shown to anyone in procurement and the process is transparent.”
Balaji also explained that no new policy decision has been taken in recent years. He pointed out that the government did not give permission to any new distillery or brewery or for any new retail shops in the recent past. “We have only reduced the number of retail shops,” he said.
Questioning the "hasty" release of ED statement on Thursday, alleging ₹1,000 crore scam, Balaji said it was a mischievous attempt to “hide” the welfare schemes and state government initiatives aimed at benefitting the people and such efforts would not succeed.
Balaji pointed out that the claims by the ED with regard to transfers and postings in TASMAC were baseless as it was “routine” for reasons like family and health requirements. He said that there were “no wrongs or violations” in transfers. “The ED has tried to give an appearance of wrongs.” He also contended that with regard to transport, tenders were awarded in a transparent manner and tenders for bars have already been made online.
Balaji also took a dig at the state BJP leader K. Annamalai without mentioning his name saying “a leader had already claimed ₹1,000 crore scam and later the ED statement repeated it and there are 1,000 meanings in this.”
However, it may be recalled that in 2023-24 the Tamil Nadu government got a stay against ED’s actions to enquire five district collectors in the illegal sand mining case. The federal agency had then summoned five district collectors alleging that the proceeds from illegal mining in Tamil Nadu ran to ₹4,730 crore.
The state government claimed that it had received only Rs 36 crore as revenue through sand mining across the state. The Madras High Court then said the ED had no jurisdiction to issue the summons to district collectors. They also clarified that there was no bar on the investigations into the sand mining case by the ED.