In another significant legal development in the Rs 2,000-crore Chhattisgarh liquor scam, businessman Arvind Singh was produced before the Special Court of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday, following a conditional relief granted by the Supreme Court on May 14. While the trial court agreed to implement the top court’s bail order, it laid down a string of stringent conditions for enforcement. The special judge directed that Singh deposit a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety bond of equal amount. He was further ordered to surrender his passport immediately at the ED office, appear in person and sign every 15 days at the ED’s Raipur office, and extend full cooperation in the ongoing investigation.

 

The court mandated that Singh must respond to any ED summons within 24 hours of notice. Crucially, the trial court warned that any breach of these conditions would result in automatic cancellation of bail. However, despite the conditional bail granted in the ED’s money laundering case, Arvind Singh will continue to remain in judicial custody owing to a separate FIR registered by the State Economic Offences Investigation and Anti Corruption Bureau (SEOIACB) on charges of corruption and fraud. His release now depends on the outcome of the next hearing of state’s anti graft agency scheduled for May 24. The Supreme Court bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, during the hearing on Singh’s bail petition, had pulled up the ED for dragging prosecution without adequate evidentiary backing.

 

“Keeping a person indefinitely in custody turns the process into punishment,” the Court had observed. It questioned why co-accused Vikas Agrawal, named in ED’s submissions, had not yet been formally made an accused. The Additional Solicitor General’s claim that Agrawal was “absconding” was dismissed by the bench as insufficient. According to ED’s allegations, Singh and Agrawal together generated over Rs 40 crore in illegal profits during the alleged scam period. The ED believes the scam operated between 2019 and 2022 through fake transactions, counterfeit holograms, and diverted liquor supplies from state-run shops—causing an estimated Rs 2,161 crore loss to the exchequer. Arvind Singh was the first accused to be arrested in this case on June 12, 2023, from Ramnagar Muktidham, Durg. Since then, multiple businessmen, excise department officials, and local politicians have been summoned and questioned.

 

The ED has so far filed three supplementary charge sheets, while the SEOIACB’s fresh FIR alleges a “systematic plunder of government revenue.” The ED is expected to submit its final charge framing by the second week of July. Singh’s next appearance before the ED is slated for June 3. Security arrangements were heightened around the court premises on Monday. No protest permissions were granted to any group or political organisation. Singh’s legal counsel Siddharth Agrawal told the media persons, “The court has shown judicial fairness by granting conditional bail. We shall comply with every directive with utmost respect.” Meanwhile, ED officials asserted that the agency is committed to a “fact-based prosecution aimed at logical conclusion.”