A Delhi-based businessman was today sent to a four-day custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) by a court here in connection with the note ban money laundering probe against lawyer Rohit Tandon and others.
Additional Sessions Judge R K Tripathi extended the ED custody of Yogesh Mittal, a resident of Model Town area, till June 13.
“The matter is pending investigation. Considering the submission of the ED, the custody of the accused is granted for a further period of four days and he is to be produced in court on June 13,” the judge said.
Mittal was produced before the court on expiry of his three-day ED custody.
During the hearing, the ED sought 10 days custody of the accused, saying it has seized several mobiles, laptops and other electronic devices and needs time to examine them.
The investigating officer said he could confront only two suspicious account holders with Mittal due to paucity of time and several other such account holders are yet to be covered.
This irked the court which questioned the probe agency why only two persons were confronted in the given time.
“That means you were not doing your role properly,” the court said adding, “Transperancy must be there.”
To this, the ED responded by providing the court with its documents and statements recorded.
Advocate Vikas Garg, appearing for the probe agency, said, “We need to examine the bank accounts of more than five persons. Four account holders need to be confronted with the accused. They have been served with summons.”
The counsel, appearing for Mittal, opposed the agency’s plea seeking further custody of the accused, saying all the documnents are with the ED already.
“Investigation has been going on for the last seven months. Already three accused are in judicial custody and two are on bail. Charge sheet has already been filed,” advocate Sanjay Sharma, appearing for the accused, told the court.
The ED had arrested Mittal on June 5 for his alleged role in a case of illegal conversion of demonetised currency worth Rs 51 crore in “connivance” with Tandon, a suspended Kotak Mahindra bank manager, and another person who acted as entry operator or illegal fund router.
The ED had alleged that Mittal was “instrumental in picking up the demonetised cash of Tandon during the period of November 14-19 last year and deposited it in various bank accounts of shell companies.”
He was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
“It was conspiracy among Kamal Jain, Tandon’s CA, Mittal, Ashish Kumar (ex-bank manager), Raj Kumar Goel (entry operator) and others that demonetised currency would be collected and deposited in various accounts of the firms which have huge cash in hand and from those accounts demand drafts (DDs) in fictitious names would be issued.
“Later, these DDs would be cancelled to get the money back into the accounts, thus converting the demonetised currency into monetised currency,” the agency said in a statement.
The currency notes of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 were demonetised after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s national address in this regard on November 8 last year.
The ED took over the case and registered an FIR under PMLA after taking cognisance of Delhi Police Crime Branch FIR on alleged fake accounts with deposits of Rs 34 crore.
The agency has attached, under PMLA law, assets (DDs) worth Rs 41.65 crore in this case.
Under the PMLA, the offence of money laundering is punishable with imprisonment ranging between three and seven years.
( Source – PTI )
