Delhi minister Satyendar Jain, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case, was sent to ED custody till June 9 by a Delhi court on Tuesday. The probe agency had demanded 14-day custody, claiming that Jain was not supporting in the investigation.
AAP convenor and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal today said that the ED case against Jain was “completely fake and politically motivated”, adding that he himself looked into the matter and did not find any wrongdoing from his minister’s end.
The ED had said last month that assets worth Rs 4.81 crore of Jain’s family and companies “beneficially owned and controlled” by him were provisionally attached as part of a money laundering probe against him.
In a statement issued then, the ED had said it issued a provisional order under the PMLA to “attach immovable properties worth Rs 4.81 crore belonging to Akinchan Developers Pvt. Ltd.; Indo Metal Impex Pvt Ltd; Paryas Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd.; Manglayatan Projects Pvt. Ltd.; J.J. Ideal Estate Pvt. Ltd.; Swati Jain, wife of Vaibhav Jain; Sushila Jain, wife of Ajit Prasad Jain; and Indu Jain, wife of Sunil Jain.”
The probe found that “during the period 2015-16, when Satyendar Kumar Jain was a public servant, the companies beneficially owned and controlled by him received accommodation entries to the tune of Rs 4.81 crore from shell (paper) companies against cash transferred to Kolkata-based entry operators through the hawala route.”
“These amounts were utilised for direct purchase of land or for repayment of loan taken for the purchase of agricultural land in and around Delhi,” the ED said.
The persons named in the attachment order are associates and family members of Jain, the officials said. The money laundering case against the Delhi minister stems from an August 2017 FIR filed by the CBI against him and others on charges of alleged possession of disproportionate assets (DA).
A charge sheet was filed by the CBI in December 2018 stating that the alleged DA was to the tune of Rs 1.47 crore, about 217 per cent more than his known sources of income, during 2015-17. The Income Tax Department had also probed these transactions and issued an order attaching “benami assets” allegedly linked to Jain.