New Delhi: A Delhi court has stayed proceedings in the money laundering case against senior Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi’s former health minister Satyendar Jain following an application by the Enforcement Directorate to transfer the case to another judge in the final stages of Jain’s bail hearings.
Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta heard Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju who had moved the application for the ED. The court has issued notice to respondents and fixed September 30 as the next date of hearing.
The agency, in its plea, has raised issues about bail arguments being heard by Special Judge Geetanjali Goel, who has frequently pulled up the ED over its investigation.
Goel has been hearing the lengthy arguments on the bail petitions of Jain and his co-accused Ankush Jain and Vaibhav Jain. The arguments were in their last stages, Indian Express has reported.
All three are currently jailed in judicial custody.
In June, Special Judge Goel had denied bail to Jain, saying the stage was not fit for grant of bail to him.
Advocate Sushil Kumar Gupta, who represents Ankush and Vaibhav Jain told Express that he was surprised over the fact that the ED sought transfer of the entire trial in this case.
“We were given the impression that this was on transfer or bail application,” said Gupta while asking the court to provide a short date since the bail application was being heard for 40 days and was “in its final leg.”
Satyendar Jain’s lawyer, N. Hariharan, had expressed his displeasure earlier, according to Hindustan Times. “It is really unfair. Totally uncalled for. They are pre-empting things. We will oppose it tooth and nail,” said Hariharan.
The Enforcement Directorate had arrested Satyendar Jain and two others in a money laundering case based on a CBI FIR in 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The minister has been accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him.
AAP has repeatedly claimed that Jain had been arrested in an effort by the Bharatiya Janata Party to curtail AAP’s campaigns ahead of the Himachal Pradesh election. Jain was the party’s in-charge for the polls.
Special Judge Goel had also recently allowed the ED to question Jain inside the jail on September 16 with regard to the excise policy scam case, which has become a flashpoint between the city’s AAP government and the Union government.
The special court had recently taken cognisance of the Prosecution Complaint (charge sheet) filed by the ED against Jain, his wife and eight others, including the four companies allegedly linked to the minister, in the money laundering case.
Earlier, the ED has approached the Delhi high court challenging a trial court’s order allowing presence of a lawyer during Jain’s interrogation.