The Delhi High Court on Thursday dismissed the bail plea of Delhi’s former cabinet minister Satyendar Jain in a money laundering case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate. Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma also junked the bail pleas of co-accused Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain in the case.
Jain, who was the health minister in the Delhi Cabinet, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the case on May 30 last year, for allegedly laundering money through four companies allegedly linked to him.
On March 21, the high court had reserved the order on the bail plea after hearing arguments of the counsel for the ED and the AAP leader.
Jain had submitted before the court that no case was made out against him and he has fully cooperated in the investigation. He further contended that there was no requirement to continue his incarceration after the filing of the charge sheet.
Jain challenged the trial court’s November 17, 2022 order by which his bail plea was dismissed on the ground that he was prima facie involved in concealing the proceeds of crime. Besides him, the trial court had also denied bail to two co-accused — Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain — saying that they “knowingly” assisted Jain in concealing the proceeds of crime and were “prima facie guilty” of money laundering.
The bail pleas of all three accused were opposed by the ED.
The ED’s counsel had argued that the AAP leader’s stand that there are no proceeds of crime can be “demolished” by the material on record which also shows that he was “in the thick of things”.
The ED had arrested Jain in the money laundering case based on a CBI FIR lodged against Jain in 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption Act. He was granted regular bail by a trial court on September 6, 2019, in the case lodged by the CBI.