Chhattisgarh High Court Rejects 13 Petitions To Quash ECIRs & FIRs In Rs 2,000 Crore Liquor Scam

A division bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal had completed the hearing on the petitions on July 10. The ruling was pronounced on Tuesday, additional advocate general Vivek Sharma said.

Retired IAS officer Anil Tuteja, businessman Anwar Debhar, former managing director of Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Limited Arunpati Tripathi, IAS officer and former excise commissioner Niranjan Das, Noida-based businessman Vidhu Gupta and other accused in the liquor scam case had filed separate petitions seeking to quash ECIR lodged by the ED and FIR by ACB/EOW, he said.

The HC dismissed all the petitions. The previous orders of interim relief granted to the petitioners also stood cancelled, additional AG Sharma said.

"From perusal of the FIR and the ECIR in question, it cannot be said that no prima facie offence whatsoever is disclosed against the petitioners. Moreover, the material collected during the investigation goes to show that the nature of offences committed by the accused/ petitioners has caused huge financial loss to the state exchequer and the estimated proceeds of crime is of around Rs 2,161 crore," said the high court.

Cause Title: Anil Tuteja & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors., [2024:CGHC:31310-DB]

Appearance:

Petitioners: Mr. Siddharth Agrawal, Senior Advocate with Mr. Sourabh Dangi, Mr. Harsh Shrivastava, Mr. Sajal Kumar Gupta, Mr. Vedant Shadangi, Mr. Arshdeep Singh Khurana, Mr. Chetan Nagpal, Mr. Akshat Tiwari, Mr. Ayush Shrivastava, Ms. Arshiya Ghose, Mr. Sidak Singh Anand {in CrMP No. 721/2024, 860/2024, 1098/2024 and 1186/2024}, Mr. Rajeev Shrivastava, Senior Advocate with Ms. Kajal Chandra, Mr. Sourabh Sahu, Mr. Ashutosh Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner {CrMP No. 936/2024, 959/2024 and 1807/2024}, Mr. Abhishek Sinha, learned Senior Advocate with Mr. Anshul Aggarwal, Mr. Aditya Tiwari, Mr. Robin Arya Lall, {Cr.M.P. No. 964/2024}, Mr. Aman Saxena, learned counsel for the petitioner {CrMP No. 1286/2024, 1287/2024, 1288/2024, 1444/2024} and Mr. Shobhit Koshta

Respondents: Mr. Ramakant Mishra, Deputy Solicitor General, Mr. Mahesh Jethmalani, Senior Advocate, Mr. Vivek Sharma, Additional Advocate General and Mr. Ravi Sharma, Advocate, Mr. Zoheb Hossain (through Video Conferencing) and Dr. Saurabh Kumar Pande and learned Special Public Prosecutor