The Chhattisgarh High Court on Wednesday came down heavily on the State Government, NTPC and SECL during the hearing of a suo motu Public Interest Litigation (PIL) concerning rising road fatalities and illegal encroachments, including liquor shops, along national highways. The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Kumar Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal was hearing WPPIL 37/2024, and expressed serious displeasure over what it termed as administrative inertia and indifference to public safety.

 

Referring to a Commissioner’s report highlighting violations in Mungeli’s Sargaon, the court observed that liquor shops and roadside dhabas near highways directly contravene legal norms. State Advocate General Prafull N Bharat informed the court that efforts were underway to shift a liquor shop in Sargaon and notices were issued to and Indramani Minerals. They had challenged the ED’s seizure of their movable and immovable properties, contending procedural and legal infirmities. After exhaustive hearings spanning several weeks, the High Court bench had reserved its verdict on July 4.

 

On Wednesday, the Bench pronounced the dismissal of all petitions, thereby reinforcing the ED-RPZO’s stance that the attached assets were proceeds of crime generated through an alleged illegal levy racket. Meanwhile, according to ED sources, the assets provisionally seized include over 100 items such as luxury cars, landholdings, jewellery, cash reserves and bank balances, all believed to have been acquired via laundered funds from the extortion operation that allegedly thrived during the previous regime. Senior advocates Harshvardhan Parganiha, Nikhil Varshney, Shashank Mishra and Abhyuday Tripathi had appeared for the petitioners. The ED was represented by Additional Solicitor General Dr Saurabh Kumar Pandey, who defended the agency’s action as legally sound and compliant with statutory procedures.