In 2015, when the BJP was in power in Chhattisgarh and Dr Raman Singh was the Chief Minister, Congress had alleged that the government was distributing sub-standard quality grains under the PDS and that officials had received kickbacks from rice millers to allow this. The Nagrik Apurti Nigam is the nodal agency in Chhattisgarh responsible for procuring and distributing food grains under PDS. The BJP government had launched a probe into what came to be known as the NAN scam and subsequently, 27 people were booked by the BJP govt – Anil Tuteja and Alok Shukla being the prime accused. ACB later started a money laundering probe as well and a chargesheet was filed in 2015. After this, Congress came to power in Chhattisgarh.
After Bhupesh Baghel took the reigns, an SIT was formed to probe the scam because the prime accused, Anil Tuteja, had alleged that the investigation was unfair. Since then, various pieces of evidence have come to the fore, proving that Bhupesh Baghel was personally shielding the prime accused, Anil Tuteja, and was instead trying to implicate Raman Singh in the scam. In 2020, Tuteja got bail and immediately, he was appointed by the Baghel govt again. Tuteja was the Joint Secretary for Commerce and Industries and Shukla became the Principal Secretary in charge of Education and other departments.
While Congress was first to bring up the scam in 2015, ample evidence was later recovered that proved that it was actually the Congress government functionaries and the Chief Minister himself was shielding the prime accused Anil Tuteja.
Exclusive WhatsApp chats accessed by OpIndia and what they reveal
OpIndia has accessed Whatsapp chats of Anil Tuteja-IAS Officer, presently Joint Secretary Industries and his Son Yash Tuteja, which was retrieved by Income Tax consequent to its raids conducted in Chhattisgarh, wherein his mobile phone was seized in February 2020. These Whatsapp chats now in possession of OpIndia contain the messages exchanged between the Tutejas and senior IPS officers in the State namely, SRP Kalluri, Kalyan Elesela, G.P Singh and Arif Sheikh. The chats clearly demonstrate that the entire criminal justice delivery system in the State is being abused, misused and mutilated at the behest of Anil Tuteja and his son Yash Tuteja.
The conduct of successive Senior IPS officers in relation to the NAN Scam, as evidenced by the Whatsapp chats, makes it amply clear that top police officers of the state, have been reduced to being aids of the prime accused in the case and are actively conspiring with Anil Tuteja and his Son Yash Tuteja, not just to undermine the sanctity of the NAN Trial, where Anil Tuteja, is a prime accused but also to fix officers and register FIRs against those whose interest conflict with that of all-powerful Tutejas.
The Chats and the sworn affidavit of a key IPS officer in the state, G.P Singh (who himself is a party to these chats), comprehensively reveal that Anil Tuteja and his son Yash Tuteja, in collusion with Congress CM Bhupesh Baghel and other important Police officers and public functionaries, that there was a hitlist against political opponents and the Chief Minister was trying not just to help Tuteja but also implicate Ex-Chief Minister, Raman Singh and his family members, former Principle Secretary Aman Singh and his wife Yasmeen Singh, Former DG (Police) Mukesh Gupta, Ashok Chaturvedi and Chintamani Chandrakar.
The gravity of the situation as evidenced by the Whatsapp chats can be inferred from the fact that the Director General of Police, who otherwise is in charge of Police administration in the State, has not just requested the son of Anil Tuteja to effect transfers and postings in his department, but has also justified such request by emphasizing how such transfers/posting/promotion or suspension would serve the best interest of Tuteja. In addition to that, every strategy of the prosecution and the investigating agency in relation to the NAN trial is either dictated or vetted by either Anil Tuteja or his son.
The Whatsapp chat reveals that officers like SRP Kalluri, Kalyan Elesela, G. P Singh, D. M Awasthi (the then DGP of Chhattisgarh), and Arif Sheikh, are all dancing to the tunes of Anil Tuteja.
Even for small favours like securing gym membership for one’s spouse with a personal trainer an officer of IPS rank, Kalyan Elesela, is dependent on Anil Tuteja and his son Yash. In return for these favours, the IPS officers are filing status reports in High Court modified and amended by Anil Tuteja – the prime accused. The chats further reveal that G.P Singh, the ADG who succeeded Kaluri as head of EOW/ACB is not just drafting a proposed order of the Supreme Court but also is acting as a Hawala operator to secure the interest of Anil Tuteja.
What is interesting is the fact that the same GP Singh, whose promotion to ADG Rank (as revealed by the Whatsapp chats) was facilitated by Anil Tuteja as a reward for his cooperation in subverting proceedings in the NAN case and for fixing the likes of Mukesh Gupta and Aman Singh, was subsequently not just suspended by the Chhattisgarh Govt but was arrested in multiple FIRs.
He has now filed a petition in the Supreme Court saying that actions against him were taken as he failed to deliver on the political hitlist which was given to him by none other than Chief Minister Bhupesh Bhagel, wherein he was asked to target the likes of Raman Singh, his son Abhishek Singh, Punit Gupta, his erstwhile Principal Secretary – Aman Singh his wife Yasmine Singh, Mukesh Gupta, Ashok Chaturvedi and Chintamani Chandrakar. It is quite pertinent that while the said GP Singh was in charge of EOW, FIRs were registered against Mukesh Gupta, Aman Singh and his wife Yasmin Singh, in connivance with Anil Tuteja, as is apparent through the Whatsapp records.
The blatant subversion of the NAN case at the behest of Anil Tuteja and his son with the active collusion of State administration also finds corroboration in the application of the Directorate of Enforcement submitted before the Court seeking a stay of the order of the High Court of Chhattisgarh granting anticipatory bail to Anil Tuteja. On the 18th of November 2021, the Times of India reported:
“Message conversations seized by the IT department shockingly revealed that both the main accused (Tuteja and Shukla) in connivance with successive chiefs of prosecuting agency-Economic Offences Wing, Anti-Corruption Bureau of Chhattisgarh, a very senior law officer in the Chhattisgarh HC, members of the SIT and with the intervention of the Chief Minister have weakened the offence of corruption against them by procuring favourable reports from SIT and by actively threatening witness of predicate offences as well as offences of money laundering”.
“The transcript of such messages clearly reveal the nature of misuse of power in Chhattisgarh, the tampering of evidence and influencing the witnesses going on a potential conspiracy involving some constitutional functionaries also”.
While the Directorate of Enforcement has in its discretion and while taking into account the sensitivity of the transcript filed the WhatsApp transcripts in sealed envelopes to the court, OpIndia believes that to cover the corrupt nexus of high-ranking public officials, the veil of secrecy is not in the interest of the public and will only facilitate functionaries like Anil Tuteja, who through corrupt means and with the aid of CM Bhupesh Baghel and Senior IPS officers in the State have circumvented and trampled the due course of justice in the NAN case.
The chats accessed by OpIndia prove that the Congress government functionaries at the behest of the Chief Minister and prime accused Anil Tuteja were fabricating evidence and threatening witnesses to implicate Dr Raman Singh and his wife. In fact, the chats also show that Anil Tuteja was acting as the head of the NAN investigation where he himself was the prime accused and was coordinating the transfer of IPS officers, promotions and other favours doled to those who were willing to participate in these nefarious designs. Further, those who did not comply were being given punishment posting or worse, being implicated in false cases themselves.
What ED had said about HC judge meeting CM Baghel before accused got bail and how the Whatsapp chats corroborate sequence of events
On the 19th of October 2022, an explosive exchange took place in the Supreme Court, while hearing a case in connection with the NAN scam (Nagrik Apurti Nigam or Public Distribution Corporation scam) of Chhattisgarh. The case in the Supreme Court was filed by the Enforcement Directorate requesting a transfer of the case outside of the state alleging collusion between highly placed persons to save the prime accused in the case.
Let us take a chat that OpIndia accessed for example. In this chat, GP Singh (GP) is talking to Anil Tuteja (the prime accused in the NAN scam). GP Singh in this chat is sending the names of the witnesses in the case against Anil Tuteja who ‘need support’ because they were presumably willing to sell out and bail Tuteja out. GP Singh tells Tuteja that “Tamarkar”, who was someone who used to work at NAN needs to be “kicked out” because he supports Chintamani (another employee of NAN). Further, GP Singh tells Tuteja that Chintamani too needs to be “further kicked”.
In the diary that was recovered during the raids in the NAN investigation, a noting referred to one “CM Sir”. That “CM Sir” noting referred to Chintamani, however, as we show later, CM Baghel himself tried to pressurise witnesses to testify that “CM Sir” actually meant Dr Raman Singh (as he was the CM when the scam broke) signifying that Raman Singh was bribed (they were actively trying to fabricate evidence).
Interestingly, it was days after this chat that an FIR was filed against NAN employee Chintamani to pressurise him to admit that ‘CM Sir’ was indeed Dr Raman Singh and not him.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had said in the Supreme Court during the hearing that days before the prime accused in the case was granted bail, the High Court Judge had met the Chief Minister of Chattisgarh, Bhupesh Baghel. “The learned judge met the CM a few days before the bail. I have nothing more to say. I did not want to say this but if this cannot shock your lordships’ conscience, nothing can,” Tushar Mehta told the bench, comprising of the then CJI UU Lalit, justices Ajay Rastogi and S Ravindra Bhat.
“Everything is not entered into in black and white. There would not be an agreement signed by the chief minister and the learned judge,” SG had said. Citing this explosive information, ED had requested the trial to be transferred out of the state because of the active collusion of CM Bhupesh Baghel and other state functionaries to save the accused. It is pertinent to note that the lawyer representing the State of Chhatisgarh was senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal.
While making these allegations, Tushar Mehta had read out WhatsApp chats that indicated towards the High Court Judge meeting CM Baghel.
“Please see this –I was wondering if HCM could speak with him”. HCM means Hon’ble Chief Minister. “He has met HCM”. That happened on 11th October 2019 and the bail was granted thereafter. The accused is telling the co-accused this. “Necessary instructions to be given to AG”. Then they’re seen congratulating each other”, SG said.
This timeline is also confirmed by the chats that OpIndia has accessed. GP Singh (GP) messaged AT (Anil Tetuja) informing him that Alok Shukla (the other co-accused) had gotten bail. Tetuja in response says congratulations to GP Singh (Chief of EOW at the time) signalling clear collusion between the functionaries of the Congress government, EOW and the prime accused in the NAN scam.
Kapil Sibal had pointed out to the court that he had been instructed to place on the record that these allegations were false. Kapil Sibal told the Supreme Court that the High Court Judge had indeed never met the Chief Minister (Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel) and that there was no active collusion between the CM and state functionaries to save the prime accused.
Interestingly, ED had also levelled other allegations against the CM and the prime accused. The ED said that the CM and his close aide Anil Tuteja and Alok Shukla who are key accused in the NAN case were vetting and dictating the draft reports of the probe into their role in the NAN scam. These allegations were also rubbished by the state.
From the chats that OpIndia has accessed, this fact becomes extremely evident. In one such chat, Kalyan Elesela, who was the SP of EOW under SRP Kalluri, GP Singh and even Arif (all successive chiefs of EOW while the Congress govt was trying to implicate Raman Singh and others) is getting a draft of the Status Report to be filed by EOW in the High Court from Yash Tetuja, the son of the prime accused Anil Tetuja. Yash in the chat says that the status report needs to be filed before 3 PM and Elesela says that he should have sent the draft to him earlier since ‘Kalluri sir’ (Chief of EOW – SRP Kalluri) will also have to vet the draft. To this, Yash Tetuja arrogantly says that Kalluri merely has to sign the Status Report that was sent by Yash to Elesela. This indicates that even the status report by EOW, to be filed in the HC, was being drafted and prepared by the prime accused in the case.
Essentially, the ED has categorically pointed towards active collusion by the state functionaries and the CM himself in trying to save Anil Tuteja and Alok Shukla. Further, the ED also said that Tuteja, in essence, was a part of the investigation against himself.
In 2021, Enforcement Directorate (ED) furnished a stunning conversation among the accused in a sealed envelope in its Special Leave Petition filed in the Supreme Court. It was reported in the media that the chats revealed that Anil Tuteja and Alok Shukla, key accused in Naagrik Aapurti Nigam (NAN) scam, not only actively participated in constituting the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe their role in the scam but also ‘unofficially’ vetted, influenced, and changed its draft report on many occasions to weaken the case against them.
The chats that have been revealed so far in this article, it becomes evident that the allegations levelled by ED are true, given that chats corroborate most of the timelines mentioned.
While the documents span thousands of pages, one of the main characters in the conspiracy to fix BJP leader Raman Singh and others in a scam that had nothing to do with, was IPS officer GP Singh. While GP Singh had a run of good posting under the BJP government in Chhattisgarh, when the Congress government came to power, he was made the Chief of the EOW (Economic Offences Wing) – one of the most prized positions. It is revealed that GP Singh was later ousted and implicated and allegedly false cases by the Congress government because he had failed to implicate and jail Raman Singh, Mukesh Gupta, Aman Singh and others in the NAN scam.
At this point, it becomes imperative to talk about who Mukesh Gupta and Aman Singh are – the two IPS officers that the Congress government has been trying to implicate along with Dr Raman Singh. Mukesh Gupta was the chief of EOW when the BJP government (Raman Singh) was in power and had opened an investigation against Bhupesh Baghel in an unrelated scam. Aman Singh was the Principle Secretary of Dr Raman Singh when he was in power. Their names will feature further in the article, proving how they were being falsely implicated by CM Bhupesh Baghel and featured in a hitlist furnished by the CM.
The Congress government has maintained the NAN scam was perpetuated by the BJP government and that diary entries directly implicate Raman Singh in the scam, while he was the Chief Minister of the State. However, GP Singh, after being ousted and implicated, had claimed while speaking to the media that he had been asked by Bhupesh Baghel to falsely implicate Raman Singh in the NAN scam, however, when he refused, he was falsely implicated in a sedition case and in a case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The chats that OpIndia has accessed shows active collusion even by GP Singh in attempting to save prime accused Tuteja and implicate Raman Singh.
GP Singh’s petition in the court and what it says about the ‘hitlist’ given to him by CM Bhupesh Baghel
Singh, on the 22nd of December 2022, filed a petition in the court where he details how he was pressurised to implicate the BJP leader and save Tuteja. In the petition that has been accessed by OpIndia, GP Singh tells the court that on the 14th of September 2019, he was summoned to the residence of the Chief Minister (Bhupesh Baghel) in the dead of the night and was directed to implicate Raman Singh the NAN scam just on the basis of certain diary entries that indicated payments to “CM Sir” and “CM Madam” seized during the NAN investigation. GP Singh then told Bhupesh Baghel that “CM sir” and “CM Madam” did not refer to Raman Singh and his wife, but referred to one officer Chinta Mani Chandrakar posted in NAN. Bhupesh Baghel would have none of it and told GP Singh to take the statement of one Shiv Shankar Bhatt of NAN who had come out of jail on bail with the help of the Congress government.
Essentially, GP Singh says in this case that the CM had asked him to get an oral statement from Bhatt, who would claim that “CM Sir” and “CM Madam” was indeed Raman Singh and not Chintamani – and he would be indebted to do so since the state had helped him get bail. When GP Singh said that would not be legally tenable, later, the Congress government due to the instructions of CM Baghel, “extracted” an affidavit out of Bhatt that said that the ‘CM Sir’ actually referred to CM Raman Singh – this was a fabrication.
Most explosively, before this midnight meeting concluded between GP Singh and CM Baghel, Singh was asked to inform the prime accused in the NAN Scam – Anil Tuteja – of the developments in the investigation. GP Singh says that Tuteja then contacted him on multiple occasions to get an update on the case and also insisted that erstwhile BJP government functionaries and the then CM, Raman Singh, should be implicated in the NAN scam.
GP Singh says that on the 10th of May 2020, he was called again for a private meeting with CM Bhupesh Baghel where he was once again instructed to implicate BJP leader Raman Singh and his wife in the NAN scam.
The petition further says, “The unsigned agenda is indicative of the political hitlist that was on their mind and certain closure of investigations that were motivated. He was ordered with some tone of finality that he must make the statement before the media implicating Dr Raman Singh and Mrs Veena Singh and conclude the investigation soon, “or else”. The threat was left looming in the air as Petitioner No. 1 was dismissed from the meeting”.
The “political hitlist” that GP Singh mentioned was attached as an annexure to the petition.
The petition further says, “When Petitioner No. 1 failed to the bidding of the higher-ups, he landed himself at odds with a political powerhouse of the State of Chhattisgarh. Within a few weeks of the meeting, he was arbitrarily transferred as a punishment posting”.
Attempt to implicate Aman Singh – the Principle Secretary of Dr Raman Singh when he was in power
In the hitlist that was furnished by CM Bhupesh Baghel to GP Singh, the then head of EOW (and who was colluding with Anil Tuteja), two names that feature prominently are Aman Singh and his wife Yasmin Singh. From the documents accessed by OpIndia, it becomes amply clear that a fabricated case was brought against him after the active collusion between GP Singh and Anil Tuteja. With the revelations made by GP Singh in court, it is safe to conclude that it was Congress CM Bhupesh Baghel who had given GP Singh the instructions to implicate Aman Singh and his wife. The documents further prove that the collusion was taking place to save Anil Tuteja at his behest.
Aman Kumar Singh, the then Principal Secretary to ex-Chief Minister, Dr Raman Singh and his wife Yasmin Singh were the prime targets after the regime change. The chats reveal that EOW was conducting a Preliminary Enquiry in a Disproportionate Asset case against Aman Singh and Yasmin Singh. The Whatsapp chats between EOW Chief and Anil Tuteja clearly reveal active connivance and conspiracy to fix Aman Singh and his wife with Tuteja acting like a handler of the EOW Chief.
The timelines of the Whatsapp chat show an interesting trend with chatter increasing in the month of February 2020 culminating with an FIR No. 09/2020 against Aman Singh and Yasmin Singh for a Disproportionate Asset case.
There are three primary chats that reveal the conspiracy to fix Aman Singh and his wife. This chat for example is from the 14th of January 2020. In this, GP Singh was telling Anil Tuteja that agencies should be instructed to provide information to EOW. It is pertinent to ask why the ADG was telling the prime accused in the NAN scam, Anil Tuteja to instruct EOW to provide information and how Tuteja wielded this much power in the Congress government.
On the 21st of October 2019, before the above chat between GP Singh and Tuteja, GP Singh had sent two documents to Anil Tuteja.
On perusal of these document attachments, it is seen that GP Singh was sending letter asking for sanction for enquiry under Prevention of Corruption (sent by the SP to GAD). On the very same day that this request was sent to GAD, it was forwarded by GP Singh to Anil Tuteja to peruse.
Here is an image of the attachment in the chat, that was sent to Anil Tuteja.
There was another document that was sent by GP Singh to Anil Tuteja was an internal checklist of the information that EOW wanted from GAD. This checklist is made for internal EOW department purposes. The fact that the Chief of EOW was sending it to the prime accused in the NAN case not only points towards active collusion in attempting to fix Aman Singh and his wife but also the unbridled power that Tuteja wielded in the Congress government.
Here is a summary table of the chats pertaining to Aman Singh.
If one looks at the timeline of these chats, it is pertinent to point out that the meeting with CM Baghel that GP Singh talks about in his submission to the court took place on the 14th of September 2019. Only a month after that, GP Singh was sending the letter requesting permission for enquiry against Aman Singh to Anil Tuteja. On the 14th of January 2020, GP Singh requested Tuteja to instruct GAD to provide information on Aman Singh and his wife and an FIR was filed against Aman Singh on the 20th of February 2020.
It is therefore clear from the WhatsApp chats that Aman Singh and his wife were being implicated falsely a) because of the explicit instruction of CM Bhupesh Baghel b) with the active collusion of an probably at the behest of Anil Tuteja to save him in the NAN case.
Some of the WhatsApp chats asking to implicate Mukesh Gupta – the Chief of EOW when Dr Raman Singh was in power
The WhatsApp chats reveal that there was a concerted and continued effort to not only implicate Mukesh Gupta but also harass any officer who was seen as non-compliant to the cause of Anil Tuteja or was seen as an impediment in implicating Mukesh Gupta. In fact, it is evident that several officers were hounded, transferred etc citing that they were “close” to Mukesh Gupta – whether this was actually the case of officers were simply using this as an excuse to get “permission” from Tuteja to affect transfers is a matter of enquiry.
In these two chats, it is evident that GP Singh is discussing with Anil Tuteja that IPS officers should be given punishment postings. Anil Tuteja, a prime accused in the NAN scam, is, as evidenced, effecting transfers and posting with the ADG asking him for counsel and permission.
There are several other conversations that indicate towards active collusion to implicate Mukesh Gupta. These chats will be analysed in follow up articles in due course of time.
The Hawala link – G.P Singh, the ADG who succeeded Kaluri as head of EOW/ACB, was acting as the Hawala operator for Anil Tuteja
At the beginning of this article, it was mentioned how a money laundering probe was initiated in 2015 by the ACB, after which a chargesheet was filed in the NAN case.
In the submissions by Income Tax to the court against Anil Tuteja and others, ITO specifically talks about the Hawala link. In para 4 of the submission, the Income Tax department says, “Further, on WhatsApp chat dated 24.10.2019..2 photos of Rs 10 notes were sent. Thereafter, accused No. 4 sent the name and mobile number of one Mr Rawat. After 10 mins, accused No 1 sent message as Tango. Thereafter, accused no. 1 sent 2 more photos of Rs 10 notes, after which, Shri Dhebar sent photos of Rs 20 note. Further, the note details communicated by accused No 4 on 24-10-19 was further communicated to one Mr GP Singh. The said chat was confronted with accused no 1 during his statement u/s 131 (A) of the IT Act, 1961 dated 8-10-2020 and accused no. 1 has tried to skirt/evasive to reply the hawala transaction done by him…”
This chat is a part of the WhatsApp conversation dump that OpIndia has in its possession.
In this, GP Singh sends a Rs 10 note to Anil Tuteja and Tuteja then sends the name of operator Rawat to GP. Interestingly, GP knows that this would be caught as a Hawala operation and then asks Tuteja to “delete previous ones”. The transaction, GP says, is fixed for the first available date on the 4th. It is therefore evident that the ADG was acting as the Hawala operator for the prime accused in the NAN scam, Anil Tuteja, who was trying to be saved by CM Bhupesh Baghel and others.
The Income Tax submissions say that Rs 1 crore was received through Hawala by GP Singh, on behest of Anil Tuteja from one Sameer Goyal.
From the chats revealed so far, the following conclusions can be drawn:
- The Congress government was actively trying to save the prime accused in the NAN case
- Congress Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel was actively colluding not just with IPS officers but also with Anil Tuteja to implicate Dr Raman Singh and others in the NAN scam
- There was rampant Hawala transactions with officers of the state acting as Hawala operators for Anil Tuteja
- Anil Tuteja and his son Yash Tuteja are powerful enough in the state to not only run an investigation against themselves but also affect transfers and suspensions. This is unlikely without the active support of Bhupesh Baghel himself.
- The investigation is being skirted and tarnished with fabricated evidence, witnesses being threatened and bought off.
- There are elements even in the Judiciary that are compromised and part of the conspiracy to save Anil Tuteja.
The NAN scam was one worth thousand of crores and one where Congress has continually maintained that Dr Raman Singh was involved. With these explosive chats that we would be exploring further in subsequent articles, it is evident that Raman Singh, Mukesh Gupta and Aman Singh are actively being framed by the Congress regime and the prime accused is being shielded at every step of the way.
OpIndia believes that in a constitutional democracy like ours, citizens have a right to know every public action done by their public functionaries. They are entitled to know the details of every corrupt transaction of public functionaries in all its bearing and as such the transcript of the Whatsapp chats in possession of OpIndia, being uploaded here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KqlOtQ-1ty2eyghcUlg0FJ8rmkGYBpqm?usp=sharing
