Gutkha scam: CBI searches Chennai residence of Additional Commissioner, GST

“Some documents had the names of the two officers whose premises are being raided,” a CBI officer told DT Next.  

The CBI team reportedly went to the wrong address initially, to SAF Games Village where the GST officer was residing earlier before shifting few months ago to a much posher residential colony in Nerkundram. Later, after realising their mistake, the sleuths went to his present address and carried out searches. The team also checked the residence of Central Excise official Sridhar at Tirumangalam during the day. 

The search team is believed to have seized several documents during the searches, though details are not available so far. 

After being on the simmer for a while, the gutkha scam exploded into a major controversy in the first week of September after a CBI team from Delhi came knocking at the residences of State Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar, State Police Chief T K Rajendran DGP and retired DGP S George, a former Chennai Police Commissioner. The agency registered an FIR on the case and arrested six persons. This included three government officials who allegedly facilitated the illegal sale of the tobacco product despite it being banned by the State government, and three top officials of MDM gutkha.

As per the case, gutkha was being sold in the State despite the ban, for which a bribe of Rs 40 crore was allegedly paid to many including ministers and top State government officials. This was going on till the Income Tax investigators stumbled up on a ledger in 2016 which had details of bribes given to different people.

A day after the raids, former city police chief George, in a press meet, said that the scam had certainly taken place but claimed that he was kept in dark by his subordinates.