No transaction in check period, no question of money laundering: AAP’s Satyendar Jain to Delhi HC

Hariharan argued that the ED would have to show that his client was in actual possession. “On actual possession, you are unable to place anything. The shareholding prior and post the check period is the same. Nothing was sold and bought, and this is an admitted position,” he said. He had previously argued that the check period in ED’s case is between February 14, 2015, and May 31, 2017, which is also mentioned in the chargesheet filed in 2018.

He said that five years before the check period, his client acquired some shares which he had transferred to his wife and even her shareholding is the same as of today. “What has increased is the percentage shareholding of Vaibhav and Ankush Jain,” he said, adding that there was no question of money laundering by him as there had been no transaction.

Referring to the records of the Registrar of Companies, Hariharan said that it was Ankush Jain, Vaibhav Jain and others and not his family who held key management positions in the companies in question. “These are the documents relied upon by the ED in the complaint,” he said.

The trial court on November 17, 2022, rejected Jain’s bail plea, observing that it “has prima facie come on record that Jain was actually involved in concealing proceeds of crime by giving cash to Kolkata-based entry operators, and bringing the cash into three companies”.

It was the ED’s case before the trial court that the companies under investigation were only paper companies that did not earn any income and that Jain was in control of these companies. The CBI had filed a case in August 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act and a year later filed a chargesheet against Jain, his wife, and four of his associates in the disproportionate assets case. Following this case, the ED had provisionally attached 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, and JJ Ideal Estate Pvt Ltd.

“By this process, the proceeds of crime to the tune of 1/3rd of Rs 4.61 crore has been laundered. Apart from that, Satyendar Kumar Jain has also used the same modus operandi to convert his proceeds of crime of Rs 15,00,000 by receiving accommodation entries from Kolkata-based entry operators… The applicant/accused had knowingly done such activity to obliterate the tracing of the source of ill-gotten money and, accordingly, the proceeds of crime was layered through Kolkata- based entry operators in a way that its source was difficult to decipher,” the court said.

On this, Hariharan submitted that at best this could be a case of tax violation under the Income Tax Act wherein black money may have been converted to white but the same does not amount to money laundering as it is not a scheduled offence listed under the PMLA. The matter is next listed on January 25.