Ranchi, Shakeel Akhtar / Sunil Jha. The people who have been identified as kingpins in the Chhattisgarh liquor scam by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), had an indirect hold on the liquor business in Jharkhand as well. In view of this, the Central Investigation Agencies are also raising the possibility of large scale scam in liquor trade in Jharkhand. The Jharkhand authorities have even made legal provisions to protect themselves in case of disturbances. Section 57 of the Excise Policy had provision to punish the licensee or his employee for any unconstitutional act. But the officers of the Corporation were exempted from the provision of penalty. The Governor objected to this.
During the investigation of the Chhattisgarh liquor scam, the ED found that a parallel system of liquor business was established with the help of people and officials engaged in liquor business. The ED has held three people guilty of setting up and running a parallel system. This includes Arunpati Tripathi, Managing Director of Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Limited (CSMCL), Prism Hologram and Film Securities Limited, a company that prints holograms and M/s Sumit Felicitities Limited, a company that supplies manpower to run a retail shop. These three have an important role in Jharkhand’s product policy and liquor trade as well. The excise department had appointed CSMCL as a consultant for the new excise policy, which was later ousted. Its director was Arunpati Tripathi. The work of printing holograms in the state was also given to Prism Holograms and Film Securities Limited. The government showed kindness to this company and gave it an office in the Utpad Bhawan itself. M/s Sumit Facilities Limited got the work of manpower supply in the state as well. In this way all the three important pieces of Chhattisgarh liquor scam were established in Jharkhand.
ED found in the investigation of Chhattisgarh liquor scam that Anwar Dhebar used to control these three with political cooperation and used to collect commission. In collaboration with Arun Tripathi, Prism and Sumit Facilities, ED has divided the liquor business in Chhattisgarh into two parts. The regulated sale has been marked by ED as ‘accounted sale’ and the sale of liquor by wrongly using government resources as ‘un-accounted sale’. Both types of liquor were sold only in retail shops run by the government. ED has included those bottles of liquor in the category of ‘Accounted Sale’, which were sold in retail shops by affixing holograms made available through the government. At the same time, those liquor bottles have been included in the category of ‘unaccounted sale’, which were given directly to liquor companies by printing holograms through prism. After this, the liquor companies used to deliver such hologram affixed bottles directly to the government’s retail shop. The government did not have any account of this. Sumit Felicity, a company that supplies manpower to shops, had trained its employees to pay more attention to the sale of liquor that reaches directly from the factory to the shop. Due to this, the government suffered a huge loss of revenue, while the entire money of ‘unaccounted sale’ went to the people who set up a parallel system of liquor using government resources and it was distributed among officers and politicians.
All the people involved in Chhattisgarh liquor scam also worked in Jharkhand
In the Chhattisgarh liquor scam, liquor business also took place parallel to the government.
Important role of three people was found in the parallel business of liquor.
Arunpati Tripathi was held guilty in the matter of creating and running a parallel system.
A company named Prism was found guilty of printing the hologram and giving it directly to the distillery.
Sumit Facilities trained its manpower to sell liquor delivered directly from the distillery to the shop
- Arunpati Tripathi was a consultant for product policy and trade in Jharkhand
Prism was given the job of printing holograms in Jharkhand.
Sumit Facilities was given the task of manpower supply to run the liquor shop.
