Chhattisgarh HC grants Anil Tuteja bail in custom milling case

What the Record Shows

The High Court of Chhattisgarh granted regular bail to Anil Tuteja, a retired IAS officer and former Managing Director of the Chhattisgarh State Civil Supplies Corporation, on 13 January 2026, in the Economic Offences Wing's case over alleged kickbacks on the state's custom milling incentive. The order, in MCRC No. 8313 of 2025, records that the accused had been in custody and releases him on a personal bond, while the investigation and any subsequent trial continue. The grant of bail is not an acquittal; the allegations remain to be tested.

The case arises from FIR No. 01/2024 dated 17 January 2024, registered at the EOW/ACB police station in Raipur, invoking Sections 384, 409 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 11, 13(1)(a) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Per the FIR and the EOW's case as summarised in the order, the custom milling incentive paid to rice millers was enhanced from Rs 40 to Rs 120 per quintal for the kharif 2021-22 season, and a portion was allegedly collected back as kickback, with the total illegal collection put by the EOW at about Rs 140 crore.

Two co-accused, the then MARKFED Managing Director Manoj Soni and the rice millers' association treasurer Roshan Chandrakar, had already been granted bail, and the court noted that Tuteja's role was "not distinguishable in any material respect" from theirs. A supplementary chargesheet in the matter was filed on 6 October 2025. Businessman Anwar Dhebar has also been named by the EOW in the custom milling matter.

How It Worked

The mechanism the EOW alleges, as recorded in the order, runs through the state's paddy procurement chain. For kharif 2021-22 the special milling incentive to millers was raised to Rs 120 per quintal, released in two instalments. The prosecution's case is that Rs 20 to Rs 40 per quintal was collected back from millers as kickback per instalment, and that MARKFED's payment of milling bills was withheld until those sums were paid through intermediaries. On the EOW's case, the scheme was orchestrated in criminal conspiracy involving the association treasurer and the MARKFED Managing Director.

The Enforcement Directorate has run a parallel money-laundering investigation, on a complaint traced to the Income Tax Department before a Raipur court, and had arrested the then MARKFED Managing Director on 30 April 2024 and searched millers in Rajnandgaon and elsewhere. The ED's measure of the alleged kickbacks, at around Rs 175 crore out of a larger incentive pool, is a different figure from the EOW's Rs 140 crore; the two belong to separate proceedings and should not be added together.

What distinguishes this order is how sharply the High Court engaged with the prosecution's evidence at the bail stage. The court observed that the statements of rice millers were "stereotyped and mechanically recorded", with identical paragraphs recurring across dozens of statements, and that the Section 164 statements of two other persons "neither named the present Applicant nor alleged money was intended for or received by him". It further recorded that no valid prosecution sanction had yet been obtained, without which the special court is "legally precluded from taking cognizance", and that no unaccounted money or assets had been recovered from the applicant. These are the court's observations at the bail stage; they are not findings at trial, and the EOW's allegations have not been adjudicated.

Who Lost Money

On the EOW's case, the party said to have been harmed is the Chhattisgarh state exchequer, through an incentive that was inflated and partly recycled as kickback, together with the rice millers who, per the prosecution, had to pay to release their own dues from MARKFED. The alleged loss is framed around the incentive pool and the sums said to have been collected back, rather than around a pool of individual investor deposits.

No recovery figure can be stated as established. The court specifically recorded that no unaccounted money or assets had been recovered from the applicant, and the amounts cited, whether the EOW's Rs 140 crore or the ED's Rs 175 crore, are the agencies' allegations rather than sums traced and returned. Where money is alleged to have moved through association office-bearers and intermediaries, tracing and recovery, if any is ultimately ordered, would follow the trial and any confiscation proceedings.

Because the matter is at the investigation and pre-trial stage, the accounting of who ultimately bore any loss, and how much, remains open.

Where It Stands Now

The current position is that Anil Tuteja, Manoj Soni and Roshan Chandrakar have been granted bail in the custom milling case, a supplementary chargesheet has been filed, and the trial has not begun. Tuteja and Anwar Dhebar have separately featured in an unrelated liquor matter, which is a distinct case and is not the subject of this report; the bail dealt with here concerns the custom milling FIR alone.

A chargesheet contains allegations, not findings of guilt; the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues. The High Court's observations on the quality of the prosecution's statements and the absence of sanction were made in deciding bail and do not decide the case; equally, the grant of bail does not clear the accused. Both propositions hold at once.

The next steps are the securing of any required prosecution sanction, the framing of charges, and the trial, alongside the ED's separate money-laundering proceeding. None of those outcomes can be predicted here.

What It Means

The matter is a clear example of the difference between an accusation and a finding. A large headline figure and a chargesheet are the start of a process, not its conclusion, and here a constitutional court, examining the same material to decide bail, found the prosecution's statements repetitive and the sanction missing. That is a comment on the state of the evidence at this stage, not a verdict either way.

For readers, the durable takeaway is procedural literacy. Bail, a chargesheet, a supplementary chargesheet, prosecution sanction and trial are distinct milestones, and a case can sit for years between the first arrest and any finding. Following how such matters actually resolve, rather than stopping at the arrest, is the point of an enforcement archive; these matters can be tracked at /news?cat=enforcement.

The case sits alongside other allegation-stage matters, such as the charges framed in the Religare Finvest loan-book case, and against reversals like the SAT order setting aside SEBI's case against Bombay Dyeing, which together show how far apart an initial charge and a final outcome can be.

FAQ

Does a chargesheet mean the people named are guilty?

No. A chargesheet contains allegations, not findings of guilt; the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues. The High Court granted bail on 13 January 2026, but bail is not an acquittal, and the trial in the custom milling case has not begun.

What did the High Court actually decide?

The court granted regular bail to Anil Tuteja in MCRC No. 8313 of 2025. In doing so it observed that the rice millers' statements were "stereotyped and mechanically recorded", that two other persons' statements did not name him, and that no valid prosecution sanction had been obtained. These were observations at the bail stage, not findings at trial.

What does the EOW allege?

The Economic Offences Wing alleges that the custom milling incentive to rice millers, raised to Rs 120 per quintal for kharif 2021-22, was partly collected back as kickback, with MARKFED payments withheld until millers complied, and puts the total at about Rs 140 crore. The Enforcement Directorate runs a separate money-laundering case with its own figure.

Are the Rs 140 crore and Rs 175 crore the same money?

No. The EOW's Rs 140 crore and the ED's roughly Rs 175 crore are different measures used in different proceedings and should not be added together. Each belongs to its own investigation.

Is this connected to the Chhattisgarh liquor case?

Some of the same individuals feature in a separate liquor matter, but that is a distinct case with its own record and is not the subject of this report. This report concerns only the custom milling incentive FIR and the bail granted in it.

Where can I read the official order?

The Chhattisgarh High Court's bail order is available on Indian Kanoon at the link in the source note below.

This report is based on the order of the High Court of Chhattisgarh dated 13 January 2026 in Anil Tuteja v State of Chhattisgarh, MCRC No. 8313 of 2025, reviewed on 2 August 2026.