Let me be quizzed in all cases together: Ex-IAS officer in SC

NEW DELHI: Ex-IAS officer Anil Tuteja, a powerful bureaucrat in the then Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress govt who is an accused in several major scams, on Monday requested the Supreme Court to direct the investigating agencies to interrogate him continuously in all the cases and then allow him bail till the completion of trials.

Appearing for the former bureaucrat, senior advocate Shoeb Alam told a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi that agencies have shown an uncanny knack of arresting him in a different case when Tuteja is close to getting bail in one.

Alam said Tuteja has been in jail since April 2024 and has volunteered for continuous custodial interrogation by the Economic Offences Wing of Chhattisgarh Police and ED. Once that is done, he should not be arrested in one case or another merely to keep him behind bars, he argued.

The bench said that as a powerful bureaucrat, Tuteja had wielded significant power and the cases against him involve alleged siphoning of huge sums of public money. "You have been granted bail by courts in cases where discretion was exercised. But we cannot pass a peremptory order granting bail in all present and future cases," the CJI-led bench said.

SC listed the cases against Tuteja - the Rs 175 crore rice milling scam, Rs 600 crore District Mineral Foundation (DMF) scam, Rs 540 crore coal levy scam, Rs 2,000 crore liquor scam, Nagrik Apurti Nigam (PDS) scam and Mahadev Betting App scam - and said he could seek bail after arrest or anticipatory bail if he apprehends arrest.

The bench said the Chhattisgarh HC was right in declining to entertain Tuteja's omnibus bail plea but added that if he files a bail plea within a week, the HC should decide it on priority within two to four weeks.

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