Jain used private school to move Rs 1 crore, says ED chargesheet

According to a chargesheet, the now jailed Delhi minister allegedly deposited cash in the accounts of Presidium school, and the school in turn issued cheques in the name of his associates, who then transferred the same into the accounts of a company allegedly controlled by Jain. The company, Mangalayatan Projects Pvt Ltd, allegedly then used this money to buy land in Delhi.

According to the chargesheet, when the ED questioned Jain about his association with the Trust that ran the Presidium school, he said he could not remember anything since he had suffered memory loss due to Covid. “When Jain was asked about his association with the Trust, in the first instance he denied he had even heard of the Trust. When documents were shown to him that he was president of the trust till 2013-14, Jain stated that he did not remember he was ever the president of the Trust. He further stated that he could not remember about his association as after Covid he had some problem with his memory,” the chargesheet states.

Jain was arrested by the ED last May in a case of alleged money laundering and has been in jail since. In its prosecution complaint (equivalent to a chargesheet), the ED has accused Jain of laundering over Rs 16 crore since 2010-11 through five companies allegedly controlled by him. Four of these companies allegedly received money from Kolkata-based shell companies by way of accommodation entries against cash paid by Jain. It has claimed that Rs 4.8 crore was laundered in 2015-16 and 2016-17 when Jain was in office. This money was allegedly used by Jain to buy agricultural land on the outskirts of Delhi.

According to the chargesheet, cash to the tune of Rs 40 lakh, Rs 20 lakh and Rs 25 lakh was allegedly deposited in the account of Presidium School, Sector 22, Dwarka on June 12, 2018, June 19, 2018 and June 27, 2018 respectively. Around Rs 52 lakh was allegedly transferred the same month by the school to the account of Vaibhav Jain and another Rs 25 lakh was allegedly transferred to the account of his mother Sushila Jain. On June 18, a cheque of Rs 23 lakh drawn on Lala Sher Singh Trust was allegedly deposited in the account of Vaibhav Jain. It was found this money had come from the Presidium Society.

All of this money, after being routed through various other accounts, eventually found its way to Mangalayatan Projects, where Jain allegedly held substantial stakes through his company JJ Ideal Estate Pvt Ltd.

Lala Sher Singh Trust Chairman G S Matharoo, when contacted, said, “Whatever the facts of the matter were, I have already told the ED. Whatever money came and whatever cheques were issued have already been revealed to ED. Now the school is under Prudence management and we have nothing to do with what happened under Devender Gupta. At that time Lala Sher Singh Trust was managed by Devender Gupta and family. I was there only as a namesake. Once the management changed, now we are responsible. I have nothing to do with Satyendar Jain.”

Sudha Gupta, chairperson of Presidium Schools, said, “Things were being managed by my husband Devender Gupta. I am only associated with the academic side of the school.”

Devender Gupta was not available for comment.

According to claims made by ED in its chargesheet, Lala Sher Singh Trust, which managed the Presidium School at Dwarka through Presidium Educational Institutions Pvt Ltd (PEIPL), was established in 2005-06. Jain was allegedly the president of the Trust till 2013-14, before he entered public life. Following his resignation, GS Matharoo was appointed president of the Trust.

PEIPL was in turn headed by Devender Gupta and Sudha Gupta, who continued to manage the Dwarka school till 2018. In that year, due to alleged “financial irregularities”, the Trust handed over management of the school to Prudence Eduvision Pvt Ltd (PEPL), which runs a chain of schools under the brand name of Prudence Schools, in November, 2018. According to the ED, Jain had allegedly been closely associated with both the Presidium chain of schools and Devender Gupta as he had been the architect of the schools and also Gupta’s farmhouse in Delhi’s Samalkha area.

According to the statement of Matharoo, as recorded by ED in its chargesheet, while Jain was part of the Trust, he along with Devender Gupta introduced Vaibhav Jain and Poonam Jain (Satyendar Jain’s wife) in the Trust. After this, Matharoo has claimed, Jain left the Trust and Vaibhav remained a member of the governing body “on behalf of Stayendar Jain”.

“Devender Gupta used to collect cash in bank account of Presidium Schools from various eminent persons and subsequently issue cheques to them. At that time, he (Matharoo) was told by Devender Gupta to issue cheques to Vaibhav Jain and Sushila Jain (Vaibhav’s mother) as cash from Satyendar Kumar Jain had been deposited in Presidium Schools Dwarka bank account,” the ED chargesheet has said.

When contacted, AAP lawyer Mohammed Irshad said, “This case is totally false. It is based on the statement of a witness who has not even been confronted with Satyendar Jain and whom the minister has never met. There is no recovery from Satyendar Jain and no accommodation entry as alleged by ED can be connected to him.”