CBI registers FIR in Tamil Nadu gutkha scam

The FIR registered by the Anti-Corruption Unit Team III on Tuesday charged the officials of indulging in criminal conspiracy and public servants of demanding illegal gratification and misuse of official position. The probe would be headed by a Deputy Superintendent of Police of the CBI, Suresh Kumar.

The investigation was earlier handled by the state Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption but the Madras High Court ordered the transfer of the case to the central agency a few weeks ago.

The matter became a controversy following allegation that many police officers in the city, including at least two Chennai City Police Commissioners, and the Health Minister, had received kickback running to several lakhs of rupees between 2011 and 2016.

It started with the Income Tax department raid at the illegal godown and also gutkha manufacturing units in Red Hills, during which they stumbled up on a ledger that contained details of payment made to various government officials, including the state Health Minister.

Though the existence of such a ledger was not officially discussed, in December 2016, the then City Police Commissioner S George, wrote a letter to the home secretary seeking probe by an independent agency into the alleged illegal payment by the gutkha traders to police officers. He had suggested that all the officers, from inspectors to commissioners, who had supervising power of Red Hills police station limit and worked between 2011 and 2016, should be probed. In his letter, George had said that nearly 30 officers were in-charge of Red Hills in the said period, including more than half of them IPS officers.

During the period, there were six inspectors at the Red Hills police station, three assistant commissioners, six deputy commissioners, five joint commissioners, six additional commissioners and four commissioners in the city who served at senior level and were supervising the Red Hills police station too.

Four months after George wrote a letter to the home secretary to initiate a probe, the DVAC began an inquiry into the matter in May 2017. In the FIR registered by the DVAC, there were names of two police officers – one inspector and an assistant commissioner – that appeared along with 15 others. It may be noted that a letter dated 11 August 2016 written to state DGP by Income Tax officials regarding the bribe ledger recovered from gutka trader was seized from room of VK Sasikala, the jailed AIADMK leader, by IT investigators during a search at her room in Veda Nilayam, house of late CM J Jayalalithaa in Poes Garden in November 2017.