Jharkhand IAS officer Vinay Kumar Choubey arrested in excise scam sent to judicial custody

    Ranchi, May 20 (PTI) The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday arrested senior Jharkhand IAS officer Vinay Kumar Choubey in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise scam in the state, an official said.
    Choubey was taken to Birsa Munda Central Jail at Hotwar here after a special court remanded him to judicial custody till June 3.
    He was arrested after hours of interrogation by the ACB, which has been inquiring into the allegation of irregularities in excise policy during his tenure as secretary of the excise department.
    The excise department's joint commissioner, Gajendra Singh, was also arrested and sent to jail in the same case.
    Choubey, a 1999-batch IAS officer, has held several key posts, including secretary to the CM. He is currently posted as Principal Secretary, Department of Panchayati Raj.
    Meanwhile, the Jharkhand government in a statement issued in the evening said Choubey caused Rs 38-crore loss to the state exchequer by “indulging in fraud, conniving with criminals and misusing his post”.
    It also said that he indulged in corrupt practices and did not follow norms in selection of placement agencies for operation of liquor shops and its sales.
    The ACB team arrested Choubey, the former managing director of the Jharkhand State Beverage Corporation Ltd after thorough investigation and lodging an FIR under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
    The state government had earlier given permission to register an FIR against him.
    An ACB team reached Choubey's residence in the morning and took him to the agency's headquarters here for interrogation.
    He was later arrested and produced before the court of ACB special judge Yogesh Kumar.
    “He has been sent to judicial custody till June 3,” his lawyer Devesh Ajmani told reporters.
    “We don’t have any information on what grounds the ACB arrested him. He has medical conditions and we have submitted medical reports before the court,” Ajmani said.
    The ACB also interrogated Gajendra Singh before arresting him.
    The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had raided premises linked to Choubey and Singh in October last year, as part of its investigation into the excise scam.
    The ED had also raided the premises of several state government officials, liquor businessmen and others.
    Searches were conducted at 15 premises in Ranchi and Raipur, the capital of neighbouring Chhattisgarh, after a criminal case was registered by the Jharkhand zonal office of the federal probe agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
    The ED had taken cognisance of a September 7, 2024 FIR filed by the Chhattisgarh Police ACB at Raipur naming Choubey, retired Chhattisgarh IAS officer Anil Tuteja, Anwar Dhebar, who is the elder brother of Raipur Mayor Aijaz Dhebar, Indian Telecom Service officer Arunpati Tripathi, and several others.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)