Satyendra Jain denied bail again by the Delhi HC
06 Apr 2023 13:29:20
New Delhi, Apr 06: The Delhi High Court on Thursday denied bail to jailed former AAP minister Satyendar Jain in a money laundering case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate. The high court, while dismissing the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader's bail plea, said he is an influential person and may tamper with evidence. The high court also said there was no illegal or infirmity in the trial court's order denying bail to the AAP leader.
Satyendar Jain, who was arrested on May 30 last year, is accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him. He had approached the high court after the trial court dismissed the bail petition in November last year.
"The present court cannot go into the validity of these proceedings. Facts show that certain disproportionate assets were masked. The court has to see the prima facie case. The broad probabilities indicate that the companies associated with him are controlled and managed by him (Satyendar Jain)," it said. Satyendar Jain had earlier submitted that he had cooperated with the Enforcement Directorate in the investigation. The former Delhi minister also stated that the trial court Judge and ED has gravely misread and misapplied the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) by identifying proceeds of crime solely on the basis of accommodations entries. That accommodation entries cannot itself lead to a punishable offense under PMLA, he had said in his plea to the high court. The enforcement agency has alleged that the companies which were "beneficially owned and controlled" by Satyendar Jain, who was a minister at the time of the alleged offense, laundered ₹ 4.81 crores from the shell companies to Kolkata-based entry operators through a hawala route.
The agency had argued that there was sufficient evidence to prove that Satyendar Jain was "in the thick of things". The case is based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) complaint registered on the allegation that Satyendar Jain had acquired movable properties in the name of various persons from February 14, 2015, to May 31, 2017, which he could not satisfactorily account for.