THE unprecedented delay in the filing of FIR into the Rs 6,000 crore Mahadev Book Online Betting Syndicate has ruffled many feathers in the political establishment of Chhattisgarh. Fuming over the slow progress in the case, a top political functionary of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had even convened a secret meeting at a highly-secured location in the capital in the third week of February. The closed-door meeting noted the union of top brass of State Administration, including those from SEOIACB and Enforcement Directorate (ED). “One of the State’s highest law enforcement officials, accompanied by a legal expert, prominently recorded his presence in the meeting, also attended by two senior IAS and 4 IPS officers from different branches, units, and wings of State Administration, in addition to an IRS cadre official from the federal agency,” sources told ‘The Hitavada’ team. However, according to sources, the high-level meeting, which was meant to arrive at a unanimous decision on expediting the long-delayed process of filing FIR in the Mahadev Online Book app scandal, awkwardly witnessed disorderly moments, as a heated verbal spat broke out between a top SEOIACB official and the legal expert. All this happened in front of the political functionary, who is otherwise considered a cool and calm person.

 

 

He had to intervene and separate the arguing individuals. He also urged them to co-ordinate and synergise their efforts towards quick registering of the FIR in the betting scam. “Reasons behind the verbal duel was discord over the adamant approach of the top SEOIACB official, who throughout the meeting insisted that the State’s agency should refrain from naming certain individuals, including top bureaucrats/senior police officials, in the FIR unless a thorough legal opinion was sought from country’s top legal officer,” sources said. “Merely naming these individuals in FIR may prove adverse for the State’s investigation agency at a later stage. However, the legal expert and ED official, affirmed that their exhaustive investigation spanning over several months, coupled with scores of statements, reinforced by incriminating evidence (digital evidence) and a money trail, are enough to implicate all the individuals, irrespective of their influential stature and positions.

 

This led to verbal altercation between them,” revealed a official present in the meeting. Sometime later, the political functionary directed the SEOIACB officials to register FIR at the earliest. The entire rank and file of SEOIACB then went into ‘incognito’ mode till an FIR bearing No-6/2024 was registered into the scam 11 days later on March 4. An offence under Sections 120B, 34, 406, 420, 467, 468, and 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), to be read with Sections 7 and 11 Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018, was registered against former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel and 21 others, amounting to criminal charges of cheating, criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, and forgery. However, unbeknownst to this political functionary and ED authorities, the FIR avoided naming several police officials/bureaucrats, except only two small fries identified as State Police’s ASI Chandrabhushan Verma and a constable Bheem Singh Yadav. This development has also come as a shock to the federal agency, which to date has not been provided a copy of the FIR registered by SEOIACB. More than 25 days have passed and the ED authorities as well as their legal counsel from PMLA court are yet to receive the copy of the FIR. It has not even been uploaded on the Citizen Portal of the Chhattisgarh Police website (cgpolice.gov.in/CCTNS_Citizen_Portal), since SEOIACB cited it as ‘Case Sensitive’ and sans any option to download.

 

“Everything is very strange and weird. The SEOIACB, which eventually registered the FIR on March 4, based on a ‘confidential’ draft of over 200 pages twice availed to them via ‘Sharing of Information’ under the provision of Section 66(2) of the PMLA, 2002, in November end last year; has failed to share it with the agency. A copy of the same draft was also sent to the Office of Chief Secretary, Chhattisgarh Government. “Moreover, in the month of February 2024, a similar ‘confidential’ draft was resent by ED but this time it was only for SEOIACB. Both these drafts, carried several reference letters of the agency with multiple enclosures of Relied Upon Documents (RUDs), wherein it specifically mentioned the name of top bureaucrats including over a dozen senior police officials and ‘powers that be’ in Chhattisgarh, who received kickbacks worth crores for watering down the cases, to include non-bailable offences, to restrict prosecution and to prevent future action on their operations. Further, the arrested accused of app promoters, specifically named high-ranking officials connected to CMO, who have received hefty kickbacks on a monthly/regular basis,” sources said.

 

“The arrested accused persons apart from admitting to their roles also gave a trail of the bribes and a list of their beneficiaries. In a span of two years from 2021 to 2023, ASI Chandrabhusan Verma collected Rs 81 crore from the panel operators in the name of ‘Protection Money’, paid to manage State police/bureaucracy/Chief Minister’s Office. Verma also gave a detailed break-up of the bribes paid by him, after deducting his cut. All these revelations were detailed in full length and proper fonts of texts in the ED’s confidential drafts. Despite all these detailed confessions, names of only low-rung cops were mentioned in the SEOIACB’s FIR,” lamented a source in the federal agency. A senior party worker of BJP in Chhattisgarh also pointed out that he smelled a rat in the whole episode, given a specific trend of SEOIACB, which issued press releases to mediapersons in all the previous five FIRs about scams in custom milling (FIR No-01/2024); DMF (FIR No-02/2024); illegal coal levy (FIR No-03/2024); illegal liquor (FIR No-04/2024) and irregularities in PSC recruitment (FIR No-05/2024). “The FIRs in all above five scams have names of top bureaucrats and politicians of the previous Congress regime. So why so much ‘secrecy’ in the Mahadev Scam FIR No-06/2024 and what is there to hide when everything else has come into the public domain? Ever since ED filed two prosecution complaints in PMLA court, not a single media brief has been issued by SEOIACB,” commented the BJP leader known for his anti-corruption stance. (To be Continued...)