The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Chhattisgarh arrested a woman official of the state government in the District Mineral Trust (DMF) scam case. Giving information about this, ED lawyer Saurabh Pandey said that Maya Warrier, posted in the Tribal and Scheduled Caste Development Department, was arrested on Tuesday and presented in the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court of Raipur on Wednesday.
Pandey said this is the first arrest in connection with the alleged scam. He told that the court has sent Warrier to ED custody till October 22.
ED lawyer said, ‘We had filed an application in the court requesting to produce Ranu Sahu on production warrant in the DMF case but the jail authorities told that he has some medical complications.’ Sahu is a suspended IAS officer, who is in judicial custody in an alleged coal scam case registered by the state Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Pandey said, ‘We have requested to produce him again on Thursday.’ He said that the ED investigation revealed that alleged irregularities were committed in the DMF during the tenure of Ranu Sahu as the District Magistrate of Raigarh and Korba districts (during the previous Congress government in the state) and the contractors were allotted work under the DMF. Received huge bribe from.
Pandey said, ‘When Sahu was the collector of coal rich areas, Warrier was posted in the concerned department and irregularities were promoted in DMF.’ The agency had raided 13 places in the state on March 1 in this case and seized about Rs 27 lakh in cash besides digital and paper documents.
DMF is a trust financed by the miners, which was established with the objective of working for the benefit of the people affected by mining related projects and activities in all the districts of the state. ED had started investigation into this case last year.
