Raipur: Two Congress MLAs among nine have been issued notice by a PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court, Raipur, in connection with the coal scam. This action followed the court’s registration of the second supplementary prosecution complaint on Saturday. The Special PMLA court, presided over by Judge Ajay Singh Rajput, has served notices to Bhilai MLA Devendra Yadav and Bilaigarh MLA Chandradev Rai and six others. There were a total of 11 accused individuals in the scam. Among them, two have already been arrested: IAS Ranu Sahu and Nikhil Chandrakar. State administrative service officer Saumya Chaurasia, who was a powerful deputy secretary in the chief minister’s office, is currently in the jail in connection with the coal scam. In August, the ED included two Congress MLAs and an IAS officer in its second supplementary charge sheet for a money laundering case related to the coal levy scam in Chhattisgarh. The charge sheet names a total of eleven individuals, including IAS officer Ranu Sahu, who is currently in judicial custody. In May, the ED seized 90 immovable assets, including luxury vehicles, jewelry, and cash worth over Rs 51 crore, belonging to MLA Yadav, MLA Rai, and other alleged participants in the scam. The ED has charged IAS Ranu Sahu’s brother Piyush Sahu. Other key figures implicated in the case include Nikhil Chandrakar and Manish Upadhayay, who is closely associated with the alleged kingpin, Suryakant Tiwari. The first charge sheet in the case was filed in the special PMLA court in Raipur on December ninth of the previous year, naming IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi, businessman Sunil Agrawal, Suryakant Tiwari, and his uncle Laxmikant Tiwari as accused, all of whom had been previously arrested by the ED. Subsequently, the first supplementary charge sheet was filed on January 30 this year, naming Saumya Chaurasia and six others as accused, including two mining officers. Chaurasia had been arrested in December of the previous year.
