Sushant Rajput death: ED files money laundering case against Rhea Chakraborty, family
New Delhi: Actress Rhea Chakraborty faces more trouble as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday filed a money laundering case against her and her family on the basis of a Bihar Police FIR in which Sushant Singh Rajput's father has accused them of abetting the Bollywood actor's suicide.
Chakraborty, 28, meanwhile, broke her silence over the FIR filed against her to say Satyamev Jayate' (truth shall prevail), and that she had immense faith in god and the judiciary. She said this in a brief video statement released through her lawyers.
The chorus for a probe by the CBI into Rajput's death case which was getting murkier by the day also grew louder with Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan saying only the central agency can do justice in the matter amid what he called a "tussle" between the Bihar and Mumbai police.
Union minister Prakash Javadekar said he expects a free and fair probe into the death case to ensure that truth comes out.
Javadekar was speaking at the 'Vision Maharashtra' event organised by Marathi news channel ABP Majha in Mumbai.
"I expect a free and fair probe so that the truth comes out. Talent should get scope in the film industry," said the Information and Broadcasting Minister.
A Bihar Police team which is in Mumbai to investigate the FIR registered in Patna against Chakraborty, recorded the statement of Rajput's ex-girlfriend Ankita Lokhande, in which she is reported to have said the late actor was not under depression, a police official said.
The 34-year-old actor, who was dating Chakraborty, was found hanging in his apartment in Mumbai's Bandra area on June 14.
The ED had called for the Bihar police's First Information Report (FIR) registered on Tuesday and after studying it, the probe agency decided to slap charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said.
They said an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) has been filed against the accused named in the FIR that includes Chakraborty, her family and six others.
Chakraborty and some others are expected to be called for questioning soon, officials said.
The ED is understood to have taken up the case after it analysed the contents of the FIR filed on the basis of the complaint by Rajput's father and gathered some independent information about the dead actor's income, bank accounts and companies.
More such details and another FIR filed by the Mumbai Police to probe Rajput's death will be part of the ED's probe, according to the officials.
Rajput's father Krishna Kumar Singh (74), who resides in Patna, has also alleged that the actress was aided by her family members, including parents, since they all were looking to purloin the assets of his son worth crores of rupees and started interfering in all aspects of his life.
The father also said he wanted a police investigation to ascertain where the Rs 15 crore deposited in a bank account held by Rajput was transferred.
Officials said the ED will probe allegations of mishandling and purported diversion of Rajput's money and operation of his bank accounts.
The agency will probe if anyone used Rajput's income and his companies for money laundering and creating illegal assets, they said.
The ED also has the powers to attach properties of the accused under the PMLA.
In her video statement released through her lawyers, Chakraborty said, "I have immense faith in god and the judiciary. I believe that I will get justice. Even though a lot of horrible things are being said about me on the electronic media, I refrain from commenting on the advice of my lawyers as the matter is sub-judice. Satyamev Jayate, the truth shall prevail.
On July 16, Chakraborty had requested Union Home Minister Amit Shah to order a CBI inquiry to understand what "pressures" prompted Rajput to take the extreme step.
The Maharashtra government filed a caveat in the Supreme Court, seeking a hearing before any order is passed on Chakraborty's plea in the death case. The Bihar government and Rajput's father on Thursday had filed caveats in the apex court in the petition by Chakraborty in which she has sought transfer of the FIR against her from Patna to Mumbai.
Caveat is a pre-emptive legal measure taken to ensure that a party does not get any favourable order without a notice or a hearing accorded to the other side.
The Bihar government said it will oppose Chakraborty's petition challenging the jurisdiction of the Patna Police in lodging an FIR in connection with the death case.
Advocate General Lalit Kishore said the state will be represented before the apex court by former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi.
While we have made no prayer for being included as a party to the case filed by Chakraborty, we will oppose her petition since she has challenged the jurisdiction of the state of Bihar," Kishore said.
He asserted that the matter fell very much within the jurisdiction of the state as the FIR was lodged on the basis of a complaint filed by Rajput's father who resides in Patna.
He also scoffed at Chakraborty's contention that all cases in the matter be shifted to Mumbai, and pointed out that the police in the western metropolis had not even lodged an FIR.
"It is the Patna Police which lodged the first FIR in the matter. I wonder how the Mumbai Police intends to investigate a matter without registering a proper case," he said.
Minister Paswan told PTI that Rajput's alleged suicide is shrouded in mystery and expressed his anguish at the "lack of progress" in the case so far.
He noted that Mumbai Police has not registered an FIR yet in the case.
Only a central agency like the CBI can do justice to the actor's family. The case should be transferred to it without any delay," he said.
With the issue of Rajput's death gaining significance in poll-bound Bihar, senior BJP leader Bhupender Yadav said people are together in getting his family justice.
"A spontaneous debate has begun in the society after the suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput, who made a name in the cine world after coming out of Bihar. Many questions, including the evils of nepotism, have been emerging from the society. We are all together in bringing justice to Sushant's family," Yadav, a BJP national general secretary, said in a tweet in Hindi. Yadav is the BJP's in-charge for Bihar affairs.
Former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the ED should register an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in connection with the money laundering angle in the case.
There is a "huge public sentiment" about handing over the case to the CBI, but the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the state has been reluctant to do so.
The demand for a CBI probe into the matter is being made by the people and not by the BJP, he added.
"Now a money laundering aspect too has come to the fore. It has been observed that money was siphoned off from his account. In such a case, the ED has jurisdiction, so, I have demanded the ED should register an FIR and probe the matter," he said.
Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh recently said the Mumbai Police is capable of handling the matter and that there was no need for a CBI probe.
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Excise policy case: HC gives more time to Kejriwal, Sisodia to respond to ED plea to expunge remarks
New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted time till April 2 to former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and 21 others to respond to a plea by the Enforcement Directorate to expunge "unwarranted" remarks made against it by the trial court while discharging them in the liquor policy case.
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma expressed displeasure over the request for more time by the lawyers appearing for Kejriwal and other accused, and said it would fix a date for final hearing in the matter during the next hearing on April 2.
"I don't know why you are not filing a reply. You should have filed a reply if you think you really needed to file a reply. They are only saying judge should not have written something that he has written."
"By second (of April), you file your reply. Then we will fix a date for final hearing," the judge said.
The Enforcement Directorate's counsel said there was no need to file replies to its petition and that this was an attempt to delay the case.
Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for ED, contended that the agency's petition has no impact on the accused, as the challenge was limited to the trial court judge's observations against the agency when it discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia and others in the CBI case.
The counsel for one of the accused said a brief reply was necessary and time was needed for it as the discharge order was 600 pages long.
Justice Sharma remarked that the ED's case has nothing to do with all 600 pages.
"Here is a prosecuting agency which has stated that the judge exceeded jurisdiction. I told them even I make such observations. I need to deicide it but you said I need to file a reply. Now you say 600 pages have to be read," the judge observed.
Raju also urged the court to direct that the observations of the trial court would not be relied upon by the accused in related proceedings. "It is a short date. Let them reply," the court responded.
On March 10, the court had asked Kejriwal and others to respond to the ED's plea.
In the petition, ED said the trial court's remarks were wholly extraneous to the CBI's case. It said the ED was neither a party in those proceedings nor afforded any opportunity to be heard.
"If such sweeping, unguided, bald observations are permitted to stand ... grave and irreparable prejudice would be caused to the public at large as well as the petitioner," the ED plea said.
"Therefore, the aforesaid paragraphs which concern the investigation independently conducted by the Enforcement Directorate under the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) deserve to be expunged as it amounts to a clear case of judicial overreach...," it added.
On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia and others in the Delhi liquor policy case, pulling up the CBI by saying that its case was wholly unable to survive judicial scrutiny and stood discredited in its entirety.
The trial court ruled that the alleged conspiracy was nothing more than a speculative construct resting on conjecture and surmise, devoid of any admissible evidence.
To compel the accused to face the rigours of a full-fledged criminal trial in the stark absence of any legally admissible material did not serve the ends of justice, it said.
In its order, the trial court highlighted that a procedure permitting prolonged or indefinite incarceration based on a provisional and untested allegation risked "degenerating into a punitive process" and raised a "concern of considerable constitutional significance" where individual liberty was "imperilled" by invoking the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
It said the issue assumed heightened significance where an accused was arrested for the offence of money laundering and thereafter required to surmount the stringent twin conditions prescribed for the grant of bail, resulting in prolonged incarceration even at the pre-trial stage.
It further said that despite the settled legal position that the offence of money laundering cannot independently subsist and requires the foundational edifice of a legally sustainable predicate offence, the prevailing practice revealed a disturbing inversion.
Underlining that the objective of PMLA was undoubtedly legitimate and compelling, the trial judge mentioned that statutory power, however wide, could not eclipse constitutional safeguards.
