Chhattisgarh govt to set up SIT to probe civil supplies scam

The Chhattisgarh government has decided to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe alleged financial irregularities in the state's Civil Supplies Corporation.

The decision was taken on Tuesday during a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel at Mantralaya in Atal Nagar, Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Ravindra Choubey said Tuesday.

"The Cabinet has decided to constitute a SIT for a high level probe into financial irregularities in Chhattisgarh State Civil Supplies Corporation. The probe will be headed by an Inspector General of Police rank officer," he added.

"The state's Anti-Corruption Bureau had probed the scam. In the raids conducted by ACB during the investigation (in 2015), it had recovered a 113-page diary (in which names of beneficiaries of the scam were mentioned). The content of only six pages of the diary were covered in the probe while remaining 107 pages were skipped," he said.

In an application to the state government recently, IAS officer Anil Tuteja, who was made an accused in the case by the ACB, had demanded a detailed probe into the matter, he said.

After seeking a report in this connection from ACB, it was decided that a SIT should be set up to examine and probe the remaining contents of the diary, he added.

"The civil supply scam was of about Rs 36,000 crore and several high profile people were involved in it. The SIT probe will reveal the truth," he added.

The alleged scam was exposed in February, 2015 when ACB and Economic Offences Wing (EOW) conducted simultaneous raids at 25 premises of Civil Supplies Corporation and its officials.

Later, the ACB made 18 people, including two Indian Administrative Service (IAS)officers, Tuteja and Alok Shukla, accused in the case.

The Congress had earlier alleged that then Chief Minister Raman Singh, his wife and other high profile people were named as beneficiaries in the diary which was recovered during the raid, a charge refuted continually by the BJP leadership.

Meanwhile, the opposition BJP has termed the decision as "politics of revenge".

"The case is already in the court and if there is any evidence related to it, it should be produced in the court. It is a sign of politics of revenge by taking help of an accused in the case," state BJP chief Dharamlal Kaushik alleged.