Gutkha scam: CBI gets Tamil Nadu govt nod to prosecute 2 AIADMK ex-ministers, DGPs

Both officers were indicted for their alleged role in the scam during their tenure as Chennai city police commissioner.

Other suspects are officers from the police, Chennai city corporation, food safety and commercial taxes departments. They are accused of taking bribes amounting to Rs 39.91 crore to help sell banned gutkha products in Chennai city area.

Gutkha and paan masala have remained banned in Tamil Nadu since 2013.

The case started with the seizure of a red ledger during an Income Tax raid at a godown in Chennai suburbs in July 2016. While the raid was linked to illegal sale of gutkha in Chennai and its suburbs, the red diary had details of monthly payments allegedly made by the gutkha mafia to people at power centres. The payments, as per the diary, were allegedly made between 2015 and 2016.

The series of raids at three godowns also led to seizure of tonnes of gutkha. An investigator who was part of the probe had told The Indian Express in June 2017 that the ledger had a page each devoted to record monthly payments allegedly made to VIPs.

“A detailed probe into the case revealed that a monthly bribe of Rs 15 lakh was being paid to city police commissioners; assistant police commissioners got Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3 lakh,” the investigator said. “There were also fixed bribe rates for joint commissioners, deputy commissioners, police inspectors in local stations, police intelligence officers, central excise officers and even health and food safety inspectors to facilitate the gutkha products in the city region.”

The case had also created trouble in the then government. When B R Balakrishnan, then principal director of I-T Department, wrote in August 2016 to then Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary and the DGP about purported evidence against ministers and senior officers in the scam, then DGP Ashok Kumar had initiated a parallel probe on the matter.

When the government did not reply to the I-T Department’s letter, DGP Kumar’s independent report on the allegations, it was said, did not go down well with the then CM office. At a time when government operations were in a crisis due to the worsening health of then chief minister, J Jayalalithaa, Kumar’s attempt to take the issue to Jayalalithaa was seen as having backfired. He was ousted from the post.

Rajendran, one of the accused in the case, subsequently became DGP.

The confidential reports connected to the case were later found at Veda Nilayam, late Jayalalithaa’s residence, during an I-T raid in November 2017. The CBI had filed the first chargesheet in the case in November 2018.