*On December 9, Amit Kumar was nabbed.
*On November 27, Karan Satyarthi quizzed.
*On October 30, Manoj Kumar and Mukesh Kumar were questioned.
*On June 17, Amit Prakash was arrested.
*On May 20, Vinay Kumar Choubey was arrested.

There are six IAS officers of Jharkhand cadre who are under the scanner of the state government Anti Corruption Bureau in the multi million Rupee liquor scam.

Amit Kumar,former Managing Director of Jharkhand State Beverages Corporation Limited (JSBCL),is the sixth IAS officer under the ACB scanner.

On November 27, 2025, the ACB questioned IAS officer Karan Satyarthi, the present deputy commissioner of East Singhbhum district. Prior to this on October 30, the ACB had interrogated IAS officers Manoj Kumar and Mukesh Kumar in the same scam.

Earlier, on June 17, the ACB had arrested former excise commissioner Amit Prakash in connection with the same case. IAS officer Vinay Kumar Choubey was arrested, jailed and currently out of jail on bail on May 20.

The ACB wants to know how blacklisted placement agencies and liquor traders from Chhattisgarh were allotted work under the state’s new excise policy and whether he had any role in verifying the bank guarantee. However, so far, it has not received any satisfactory reply.

Another ACB official said Amit Kumar expressed his inability to share information, stating that he was not in the department when the scam took place.

Kumar is learnt to be saying that he has no information on the matter.The excise policy was implemented on May 1, 2022 when the chief minister Hemant Soren held the portfolio of Excise Department,

Amit Kumar was transferred two months later, on July 10, 2022. Now, during interrogations, he reportedly claimed that the scam occurred a year after his transfer and therefore he has no knowledge of what happened thereafter”.

Notably, the case pertains to the misuse of position in selecting placement agencies, causing a loss of ₹38 crore to the state government. The ACB registered an FIR on May 20 under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections, including section 61(2) read with sections 318/336/340/316/45 & 49, and section 7(c)/12, along with section 13(2) read with 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018).

The CM Hemant Soren has taken initiative to bring the accused to justice. However,the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has termed the questioning of these IAS officials in the liquor scam as an attempt to shield the CM Soren and implicate them.

Opposition BJP chief and former CM Babulal Marandi is on record saying this,“Chief minister Hemant Soren is once again planning to sacrifice government officials to save himself. But with the increasing number of scams, the number of government officials will fall short compared to the scams.”

“The liquor scam initially showed losses of ₹38 crore, then ₹70 crore, and now ₹136 crore,” said BJP state president and Leader of the Opposition Babulal Marandi, without naming any government official.”