ED files petition against Delhi High Court order enabling Satyendar Jain to have legal representation during interrogation

Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a petition in the Delhi High Court today, challenging a special court’s ruling enabling Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain to have legal representation during his interrogation.

In a money laundering case, Special Judge Geetanjali Goel handed Jain’s custody to the ED until June 9. ED’s lawyer, Zoheb Hossain, brought the case before Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi’s bench. The petition will be heard on Friday, according to the Court.

At Satyendar Jain’s request, the special court allowed his attorney to be present during interrogation from a distance where he could see but not hear the questions.

However, ED has requested Jain’s detention in the money laundering case in order to track down the money’s origins. Satyendar Jain was accused of money laundering through the use of accommodation entries in the corporations.

Following this, ED arrested Jain on May 30 in connection with alleged hawala transactions involving a Kolkata-based firm. After a special ED team stormed Jain’s home in Delhi, he was arrested.

Later, CBI filed an FIR against Jain in a money laundering case on August 25, 2017.
Based on this FIR, the ED filed a criminal case against the AAP leader, alleging that he could not explain the source of cash received by four firms in which he was a stakeholder.

Jain is said to have formed or purchased a number of shell companies in Delhi. He is also accused of laundering Rs 16.39 crore through 54 shell firms controlled by three Kolkata-based hawala operators.

Jain is accused of owning a huge number of shares in the Prayas, Indo, and Akinchan firms. According to reports, after joining Kejriwal’s cabinet as a Minister, all of his holdings were transferred to his wife in 2015.

These corporations used to send cash payments to their Kolkata equivalents, who would then “route back the money” to Jain via legal ways under the guise of buying shares. Between 2010 and 2014, the firms are said to have laundered Rs 16.39 crores to Satyendar Jain.

According to official sources, Jain submitted black money in the shape of cash of Rs 16.39 crore under the Income Disclosure Scheme (IDS) 2016 on the benami identities of Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain when prosecuted by the I-T Department.

The Home Ministry authorised Jain’s prosecution in crimes involving excessive assets and money laundering in November 2019.