Jharkhand: Suspended IAS officer Vinay Kumar Choubey gets bail in liquor scam case

Ranchi, Aug 19 (PTI) Suspended IAS officer Vinay Kumar Choubey was granted bail on Tuesday by a court in Ranchi in a liquor scam case, after the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) failed to file the charge sheet within the stipulated time.

However, Choubey will not be released from jail immediately as he is also an accused in a land-related case in Hazaribagh.

"The court was told that 92 days have passed in this case on Tuesday, but the ACB has not filed the charge sheet. The Supreme Court has directed in many cases that if the charge sheet is not filed within the stipulated time, then the applicant becomes entitled to default bail," Choubey's lawyer Devesh Ajmani told PTI.

Choubey is currently undergoing treatment at RIMS.

The ACB court granted him default bail under Section 187(2) of the BNSS.

The court has directed him to submit two personal bonds of Rs 25,000 each for bail, not to leave the state without its permission and not to change his mobile number, Ajmani said.

Choubey, in his petition, had challenged his arrest by the ACB.

The plea claimed that the FIR lodged against him was not maintainable and should be dismissed.

The ACB had arrested Choubey on May 20. He was suspended by the Jharkhand government in view of the allegations against him.

Choubey is alleged to have been involved in the scam with regard to the sale of liquor amounting to Rs 38 crore.

The state government had in a statement claimed that Choubey caused Rs 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.

Meanwhile, BJP state president and Leader of Opposition Babulal Marandi alleged that the action of the state government in this case “was under suspicion from the beginning”.

“The ACB deliberately did not file a charge sheet within 90 days... which made the way for his bail easy. In fact, the Hemant Soren government had hatched a dramatic conspiracy to arrest its own former secretary so that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigation could be affected and evidence could be destroyed,” Marandi told reporters.

The ED should take strict legal action against “these corrupt people involved in the loot of thousands of crores of public money”, he said.

Earlier, the ED had raided premises linked to Choubey and others in October last year, as part of its investigation into an excise scam. PTI CORR NAM SOM RBT