Explained | What is the Chhattisgarh PDS scam that led to a Supreme Court listing controversy?

The alleged scam relates to irregularities in the State’s Public Distribution System when Raman Singh’s BJP government was in power

The story so far: On November 21, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud agreed to hear the Nagrik Apurti Nigam (NAN) scam case in the Supreme Court, after a high-octane exchange last week between the Chhattisgarh Government and the Enforcement Directorate over the case’s listing in front of a fresh Bench with Justices M.R. Shah and Hima Kohli. Justice Chandrachud will hear the case along with Justices Ajay Rastogi and S. Ravindra Bhat, also associate judges on an earlier bench headed by his predecessor Justice U.U. Lalit.

The Nagrik Apurti Nigam is Chhattisgarh’s nodal agency for procuring and distributing food grains under the Public Distribution System (PDS).

In 2015, when former Chief Minister and BJP leader Raman Singh was in power, the Opposition allegedthat the government was distributing sub-standard quality grains under the PDS and that officials had received kickbacks from rice millers to allow this.

The State’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) launched a probe into the matter. While conducting raids on the NAN’s office, the agency found unaccounted-for cash worth over ₹3 crore. It also tested food samples distributed through fair-price shops for their quality, finding many samples of salt and rice unfit for human consumption. It booked 27 persons in the case— including two IAS officers, now the main accused—Anil Tuteja and Alok Shukla (the Chairman and the Managing Director of NAN, respectively) alleging that they had allowed the distribution of sub-standard foodstuffs. The ACB also found documents and devices showing transactions to beneficiaries. The ED also later started a money laundering probe in the case.

The ACB filed its chargesheet in 2015, and charges were pressed against the officers in 2018. This was also the year whenChief Minister Bhupesh Bhagel’s Congress government took charge, constituting a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter again. Notably, Mr. Bhagel’s administration also appointed the two accused IAS officers to government posts— Mr. Tuteja is now Joint Secretary for Commerce and Industries while Mr. Shukla is, though the Principal Secretary in charge of Education and other departments. In 2020, the Chhattisgarh High Court granted anticipatory bail to the two officers.

In 2015, Sudeip Srivastava, a lawyer from Raipur, also moved the High Court seeking further investigation of the case. The trial, however, has not been completed, and over 70witnesses in have turned hostile, according to Mr. Srivastava.

Late last year, the Enforcement Directorate moved the Supreme Court seeking a retrial out of Chhattisgarh and the transfer of the case to the CBI. The ED, in its petition, alleged that the judiciary and the current Chhattisgarh government was weakening the investigation and helping the accused in the case and asked the Court to allow proof of the same. i