NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed five week’ extension to the interim bail granted to former Delhi minister Satyendar Jain on medical grounds in the money laundering case registered against him by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The relief was given by a bench comprising Justices A S Bopanna and Bela M Trivedi after Jain’s counsel, senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, submitted that his client had undergone a spine surgery on July 21 and needed time to recover.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, who was representing the Central agency, did not oppose the submission. Raju said the ED wanted its application seeking independent evaluation of Jain by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) or any other hospital to be heard on the next date. Accordingly, the matter was adjourned for the next hearing after five weeks.
AAP senior leader Satyendra Kumar Jain was earlier granted an extension of his medical interim bail from July 10 till 24. On May 26, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to the former Delhi minister for six weeks on medical grounds, saying a citizen had the right to receive treatment of his choice in a private hospital at his own expense.
Jain had been arrested by ED on May 30 last year and is accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him. As per an earlier trial court order, “Jain is the conceptualizer, visualizer and executor of the entire operation and his being aided and abated by Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain (co-accused persons in the case).”
As per the ED, Vaibhav and Ankush are directors in the companies for the purpose of making a declaration of income belonging to Satyendar Kumar Jain. “The fact that Satyendar Kumar Jain wrote a letter to Income Tax authorities to adjust his demand of tax against the tax deposited by Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain shows their close complicity,” the Central agency contends.
The order contended that “the plea of Satyendar Jain that he was not found in physical possession of any property needs to be rejected out-rightly as for the offence of money laundering, the physical possession of proceeds of crime is not necessary. Similarly, the fact that shares so acquired were transferred back to Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain will also make no difference as it may again be done to conceal the proceeds of crime or projected as untainted money.”
