The ED case against Deshmukh and others is borne out after the CBI first carried out a preliminary enquiry followed by a regular case being filed on the orders of the Bombay High Court.
Diamantaire Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the multi-crore PNB scam, has told a special court in Mumbai that he hasn't been able to return to India "due to reasons beyond his control" and hence cannot be declared a "fugitive economic offender". The accused has claimed that he didn't leave India to avoid criminal prosecution nor is he refusing to return to the country. He said his passport has been suspended by Indian authorities.
A court in New Delhi on Thursday extended the Enforcement Directorate custody of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal till April 1 in the excise policy case.
The bench said most of the allegations in the corruption case registered by the CBI against Sisodia were "hearsay", based on the statements made by approvers and would not pass scrutiny before the trial court without any concrete material.
The law officer said the money trail showed that Rs 45 crore "kickback" used in the Goa assembly elections came from four hawala routes.
The ED in April provisionally attached Rs 7.27 crore funds of the actor under the PMLA apart from Rs 15 lakh cash as the agency called these funds as "proceeds of crime".
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to explain why the political party (Aam Aadmi Party) which was allegedly the beneficiary of the Delhi Excise Policy 'scam', has not been made an accused in the money laundering case.
The alleged scam pertains to the period when Lalu Prasad was the railway minister in the UPA-1 government at the Centre.
He has been sent to the ED custody till April 18 by the court, they said.
The summons were sent to Singham recently on his personal email ID and also through the Chinese diplomatic channels after the ED routed them through the ministry of external affairs, the officials said.
The ED also alleged that Kejriwal, during his questioning, said AAP communication in-charge Vijay Nair 'did not report to him' but to his cabinet colleagues Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj and that his interaction with Nair was 'limited'.
'Even if this Bill passes in Parliament, it will reasonably face judicial scrutiny. 'One can reasonably expect challenges in the Supreme Court questioning its Constitutional validity.'
A total of 161.30 acres of land, plant, machinery and building of the Kannad Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana Limited (Kannad SSK) located in Kannad village of Aurangabad district has been provisionally attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the ED said in a statement.
The Enforcement Directorate has seized Rs 36 lakh, an SUV and some 'incriminating' documents after it searched the Delhi residence of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, official sources said Tuesday.
The DVAC searches were undertaken after the department arrested the ED's Madurai stationed enforcement officer Ankit Tiwari for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 20 lakh from a doctor.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Aam Aadmi Party communication in-charge Vijay Nair and businessman Abhishek Boinpally in connection with its ongoing money laundering probe into the Delhi Excise policy that was scraped following corruption allegations, official sources said Monday.
The Delhi high court reserved on Wednesday its order on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's pleas challenging his arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the excise policy case and seeking interim bail.
The top court had come down heavily on the ED and said it is not expected to be "vindictive" in its conduct and must act with utmost probity and fairness.
The ED will probe if money earned from the illicit narcotics trade was laundered to create movable and immovable assets by the accused. The investigation will run parallel to the NCB probe, the sources said.
The federal probe agency also made a fresh arrest in this case as it took into custody Hyderabad-based liquor businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, they said.
Purchase of three plots of land in Haryana in 2005-06 by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra from a real estate agent is being probed along with a land deal made by his wife Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) claimed in a recently filed money laundering case charge sheet.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate's pleas seeking an early hearing into the appeals challenging the acquittal of former telecom minister A Raja and others in the 2G spectrum allocation case.
The charge sheet has been filed before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Delhi and the court has listed the matter to be heard on January 16, the sources said.
The AAP said that the ED should wait for the court's decision instead of repeatedly sending summonses to Kejriwal.
The data said the ED filed a total of 176 Enforcement Case Information Reports (ECIRs), equivalent to a police FIR, against existing and ex MPs, MLAs and MLCs which comes to 2.98 percentage of the total 5,906 such complaints filed since the law came into being.
During the raids, Rs 53 lakh, $1,900, about 540 grams of gold and bullion and 1.5 kg of gold jewellery were seized, sources in agency said and added that one of the locations searched was a house in south Delhi where Lalu Prasad Yadav's son and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav was present.
The 36-year-old actor has been questioned two-three times by the agency in the said case earlier.
'Non-BJP state governments and their leaders, navigating today's political landscape, know well they have no clue what awaits around the corner.' 'The chances of charges pressed and oneself getting parked in custody play out on an uneven playing field,' points out Shyam G Menon.
The agency wants to question and record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Calling the action of the ED as harassment, he questioned the timing of the summons when the Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra was on and when the State Assembly session was underway.
Enforcement Directorate officials on Sunday detained Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut in connection with the Patra Chawl land scam case in Mumbai after hours of conducting raids at his residence.
The Enforcement Directorate has also taken interest in the case and sought related documents and FIR copies from the local police, they added.
The court disposed of a public interest litigation that sought directions to prevent Kejriwal from issuing orders in his capacity as the chief minister while in ED custody, contending that it was against the legal framework.
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday submitted a charge sheet against Maharashtra Minority Development Minister Nawab Malik in an alleged money laundering case linked to fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim.
She will be questioned in the case involving alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar and others.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday told the Delhi high court that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, arrested in a money laundering case linked with the alleged excise scam, cannot claim "immunity" from arrest on the ground of upcoming elections as law is applied equally to him and an aam aadmi.
A Delhi court on Wednesday sent former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey to nine days' custodial interrogation by Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case related to alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping of stock exchange employees. Special Judge Sunena Sharma allowed ED to quiz Pandey after the agency said he was required to be confronted with other accused in the case. Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for the ED, moved an application seeking Pandey's 14-day custodial interrogation, saying the former Mumbai Police Commissioner committed an unlawful act of tapping of MTNL phones, for which purpose Rs 454 crore was paid, and becomes proceeds of crime.
Justifying his arrest, the ED said Kejriwal had been arrested bona fide and not for any mala fide or extraneous reasons.
The Central Industrial Security Force, tasked with the security of the ED officials, are using high-resolution body cameras to keep track of activities around Soren's residence, he said.
The ED on Wednesday had issued a fresh and the fifth summons to Kejriwal after he skipped four earlier summonses over the last four months.
