Businessman Hasan Ali Khan, probed by ED for ‘money laundering’, dies
Khan’s co-accused in the case, Kashinath Tapuriah, died in 2017 pending trial.
3 min read
Pune-based businessman Hasan Ali Khan (File) Businessman Hasan Ali Khan, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2011 and remained behind bars till he was granted bail in 2015, died in Hyderabad on Thursday night, a special court in Mumbai was informed on Friday. His trial had not begun yet. He was 71.
His lawyer Prashant Patil said that Khan was in Hyderabad to visit his parents’ grave when he passed away late Thursday night. His final rites were completed in Pune, where he lived with his wife and son.
Khan first hit headlines in 2007 when the Income-Tax (I-T) department raided his residence. It was alleged that a letter was then found mentioning an account in the United Bank of Switzerland in Khan’s name which had USD 8 billion in deposits.
The I-T department had assessed his income to be Rs 1.1 lakh crore. This led to the ED probe against him for alleged money-laundering in 2011. Investigations, however, later revealed that the letter was fake and in a response to a letter rogatory from the Indian embassy in Berne, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice is said to have declared as forged the letter claiming deposits of USD 8 billion attributed to UBS. In 2016, the I-T department’s assessment of Khan’s tax liability too was reduced from Rs 34,000 crore as claimed earlier to a mere Rs 3 crore.
The ED, however, continued to probe the case based on a scheduled offence registered against him under the Passports Act claiming that there was money laundering of proceeds of crime. The case against him was one of the longest pending cases filed by the ED. While one of his co-accused Kashinath Tapuriah passed away pending trial in 2017, Khan himself has approached court multiple times seeking expediting the trial. Khan’s lawyer also filed a plea before the Bombay High Court, seeking directions to the ED to conduct day-to-day trial, which is pending.
“Mr Khan was arrested and was behind bars for four years and eight months. His health deteriorated every day behind the bars. We had approached courts seeking the trial to be conducted on day-to-day basis. The special court had also framed charges against him but the ED never got any witness or evidence before the court. If this was a very huge scam, why did the ED shy from conducting the trial? There are strong rigours in such cases to conduct the trial, however no trials are ever conducted,” Patil said.
The special court had framed charges against Khan in May 2022 under PMLA. He attended the proceedings via videoconferencing from Pune, where he was bedridden and hospitalised.
The court had considered his age, health and the long pendency of the case to allow the charges to be framed through videoconferencing.
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