Assets of suspended IAS officer attached. ED searches premises IPS officer

In Chhattisgarh, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has attached properties of Rs 4 crore belonging to suspended IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, an accused in a coal levy scam, for allegedly amassing assets beyond his known sources of income, officials said. The EOW had registered a disproportionate assets case against Vishnoi in July 2024, an official release said on Saturday. During the investigation, the agency identified nine immovable properties, valued at around Rs 4 crore, allegedly acquired through illicit means in the names of Vishnoi’s family members and associated firms, it said.
Proceedings are also underway in cases involving other public servants, including action taken in September last year against properties linked to Saumya Chaurasia, who was deputy secretary in the chief minister’s office during the Congress government, the statement said. Vishnoi, a 2009-batch Chhatisgarh cadre IAS, was first arrested in 2022 by the ED in connection with the alleged coal levy scam. He was among several accused who were granted bail last year by the Supreme Court.The case refers to an alleged Rs 540 crore racket between July 2020 and June 2022, when an illegal levy of Rs 25 per tonne was being extorted by a cartel involving senior bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and middlemen for every tonne of coal transported in the state.The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier provisionally attached five immovable properties linked to Vishnoi in connection with the coal levy scam, it added.
In West Bengal, the ED on Sunday conducted searches at three premises linked to Kolkata Police Deputy Commissioner Shantanu Sinha Biswas and Sun Enterprise Managing Director Jay S Kamdar in connection with an ongoing money laundering investigation linked to the Sona Pappu case. Of the three premises being searched by the ED's Kolkata unit, two belong to Biswas and one to Kamdar.
According to the ED, the investigation was initiated against Sona Pappu and others on the basis of multiple FIRs registered by West Bengal Police under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Arms Act, 1959, for their involvement in rioting, attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy and Arms Act violations. The agency has alleged that the accused persons, including Sona Pappu, were engaged in organised criminal syndicate activities in the state of West Bengal and generated huge funds illegally by way of syndicate operations