The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a supplementary prosecution complaint (equivalent to a charge sheet) against former J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah and others, including Ahsan Ahmad Mirza, Mir Manzoor Gazanffer, in connection with its probe into the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) money laundering case. The charge sheet was filed on June 4, but a special court in Srinagar took its cognisance on Tuesday. The court has issued notices to the accused for appearance before it on August 27. “The case relates to the siphoning off of JKCA funds by way of transfer to various personal bank accounts of unrelated parties, including those of office-bearers of JKCA and by way of unexplained cash withdrawals from JKCA bank accounts.the quantum of proceeds of crime identified by the ED in this case so far is Rs 51.90 crore out of which assets worth Rs 21.55 crore have been attached by the ED,” the agency said in a statement. The ED had arrested the then JKCA treasurer Mirza on September 5, 2019, and filed a prosecution complaint against him on November 1, 2019. Mirza is currently on trial. In March this year, the agency had provisionally attached assets totalling Rs 7.25 crore belonging to an accused in the case. The agency had also attached assets of Abdullah as well in the case. The case involves the alleged siphoning off of the grants given by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to the JKCA. It was alleged that between 2002 and 2011, funds to the tune of over Rs 43 crore (ED now claims it is over Rs 50 crore) were siphoned off from the JKCA coffers. These funds were part of the Rs 112-crore grant given by the BCCI to the JKCA. In 2020, the ED had attached properties worth Rs 14.32 crore belonging to Mirza, Ghazanfar and Farooq. As part of that, Farooq's Gupkar Road bungalow too was attached, apart from his properties in Jammu. The agency had also filed a prosecution complaint against Mirza. Farooq has already been questioned multiple times in the case, the latest being in May this year. “Between 2006 and January 2012, when Farooq was the JKCA president, he misused his position and clout by illegal appointments of office-bearer at JKCA to whom he gave financial powers for the purpose of laundering of JKCA funds. Investigation also reveals that Farooq was instrumental as well as beneficiary of the laundered funds of JKCA,” the ED had said in a statement earlier. The agency had claimed that despite there being an JKCA bank account, six new bank accounts were opened for alleged parking and siphoning off the JKCA funds. One dormant bank account in the name of the Kashmir wing of the JKCA was also made operational for the same purpose, the agency had said. The ED case is based on a CBI FIR of 2015. In July 2018, the CBI filed a charge sheet in the case against Farooq and three others – then JKCA general secretary Md Saleem Khan, then treasurer Mirza, and J&K Bank executive Bashir Ahmad Misgar – under Ranbir Penal Code provisions related to criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust. It alleged that “Farooq had connived with the treasurer of JKCA and others for undue siphoning off and misappropriation of funds”.
