The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday (May 20, 2025) arrested senior Jharkhand IAS officer Vinay Kumar Choubey in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise scam in the state, an official said.
The officer was accused of causing ₹38 crore loss to the state exchequer by indulging in corrupt practices.
Mr. Choubey was taken to Birsa Munda Central Jail at Hotwar in Ranchi after a special court remanded him to judicial custody till June 3, 2025.
He was arrested after hours of interrogation by the ACB, which has been inquiring into the allegation of irregularities in excise policy during his tenure as secretary of the excise department.
The excise department’s joint commissioner, Gajendra Singh, was also arrested and sent to jail in the same case.
Mr. Choubey, a 1999-batch IAS officer, has held several key posts, including secretary to the CM. He is currently posted as Principal Secretary, Department of Panchayati Raj.
The Jharkhand government in a statement claimed that Mr. Choubey caused ₹38-crore loss to the state exchequer by “indulging in fraud, conniving with criminals and misusing his post”.
It also said that he indulged in corrupt practices and did not follow norms in selecting placement agencies to operate liquor shops and their sales.
The ACB team arrested Mr. Choubey, the former managing director of the Jharkhand State Beverage Corporation Limited, after a thorough investigation and lodging an FIR.
The opposition BJP, however, demanded a CBI investigation against Mr. Choubey, claiming that the state ACB action is an eyewash.
BJP state president and Leader of Opposition Babulal Marandi said he had drawn the government’s attention to the “liquor scam” in April 2022, much before the Chattisgarh liquor scandal surfaced.
Mr. Marandi alleged that ACB’s actions were efforts to shield big culprits involved in the scam and demanded handing over the case to CBI.
Mr. Choubey was earlier the principal secretary to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and the excise secretary of the state during the implementation of the 2022 excise policy in the state.
The State Government had earlier given permission to register an FIR against Mr. Choubey.
An ACB team reached the officer’s residence in the morning and took him to the agency’s headquarters in Ranchi for interrogation.
He was later arrested and produced before the court of ACB special judge Yogesh Kumar.
“He has been sent to judicial custody till June 3,” his lawyer Devesh Ajmani told reporters.
“We don’t have any information on what grounds the ACB arrested him. He has medical conditions and we have submitted medical reports before the court,” Ajmani said.
The ACB also interrogated Gajendra Singh before arresting him.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had raided premises linked to Mr. Choubey and Mr. Singh in October last year, as part of its investigation into the excise scam.
The ED had also raided the premises of several state government officials, liquor businessmen and others.
Searches were conducted at 15 premises in Ranchi and Raipur, the capital of neighbouring Chhattisgarh, after a criminal case was registered by the Jharkhand zonal office of the federal probe agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The ED had taken cognisance of a September 7, 2024 FIR filed by the Chhattisgarh Police ACB at Raipur naming Mr. Choubey, retired Chhattisgarh IAS officer Anil Tuteja, Anwar Dhebar, who is the elder brother of Raipur Mayor Aijaz Dhebar, Indian Telecom Service officer Arunpati Tripathi, and several others.
The FIR alleged that the Jharkhand liquor policy of 2022 was framed to illegally benefit syndicates of the state, leading to loss to the state government to the tune of crores of rupees.
Tuteja, Dhebar, Tripathi and others allegedly formed a “syndicate” and conspired with Jharkhand government officials to amend the excise policy of that state.
They awarded tenders for Indian and foreign liquor supply in Jharkhand to syndicate members, thereby committing fraud and causing loss of crores of rupees to the state government between 2022 and 2023, the FIR said.
The syndicate was also accused of selling unaccounted domestic liquor with duplicate holograms and illegally allotting supplies of foreign alcohol to companies close to them.
The syndicate fetched illegal commissions to the tune of crores of rupees from such firms, as per the FIR.
Dhebar and Tripathi, as per the police, met with the then Jharkhand excise secretary (Choubey) and other officials in January 2022. They proposed replacing the existing contract system in Jharkhand with a distribution model of Chhattisgarh, which helped the syndicate to allegedly earn slush funds.
According to the plan, Dhebar, Tripathi, Mr. Choubey and Gajendra Singh made preparations to implement the new excise policy in Jharkhand by taking their seniors into confidence, noted the FIR.
A resolution was passed in the Jharkhand Assembly for the purpose and Tripathi was contracted as a consultant by the Hemant Soren government, it said.
Under the patronage of Mr. Choubey and Gajendra Singh, in order to allot the tender for the liquor supply, placement agencies of Dhebar and his syndicate “manipulated” tendering norms and introduced a mandatory condition of having a minimum turnover of ₹100 crore for two continuous financial years to get wholesale liquor licences, said the FIR.
The ED had arrested Tuteja, Dhebar, Tripathi and several others.
Published – May 21, 2025 07:15 am IST
