Enforcement Directorate can show Satyendar Jain is prima facie guilty: Supreme Court

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, March 19

There is sufficient material collected by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to show that senior AAP leader Satyendar Jain and his aides are prima facie guilty of money laundering offences, the Supreme Court has said.

“Having regard to the totality of the facts and circumstances of the case, we are of the opinion that the appellants have miserably failed to satisfy us that there are reasonable grounds for believing that they are not guilty of the alleged offences. On the contrary, there is sufficient material collected by the respondent-ED to show that they are prima facie guilty of the alleged offences,” said a Bench led by Justice Bela M Trivedi while dismissing Jain’s regular bail plea and ordering him to surrender forthwith.

“In light of the totality of facts and circumstances of the case, it is not possible to conclude that the appellants had complied with the twin mandatory conditions stipulated in Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Furthermore, the High Court, in the impugned judgment, after discussing the material on record, prima facie found the appellants guilty of the alleged offences under the PMLA. This judgment does not suffer from any illegality or infirmity,” stated the Bench in its March 18 judgment.

The top court had on May 26 granted a six-week interim bail to the AAP leader on medical grounds. Since then his interim bail had been extended several times.

On April 6 last year, the Delhi High Court had dismissed the bail plea of Jain in a money laundering case, noting the witnesses’ claim that he was the conceptualiser, initiator and fund provider in the alleged crime.

The SC said, “From the above stated facts there remains no shadow of doubt that the appellant, Jain, had conceptualised the idea of accommodation entries against cash and was responsible for the accommodation entries totalling to Rs 4.81 crore received through the Kolkata-based entry operators in the bank accounts of the four companies — Akinchan Developers Pvt Ltd, Paryas Infosolution Pvt Ltd, Indo Metalimpex Pvt Ltd and Mangalayatan Projects Pvt Ltd — by paying cash and the said companies were controlled and owned by him and his family.

“Though it is true that a company is a separate legal entity from its shareholders and directors, the lifting of corporate veil is permissible when such corporate structures have been used for committing fraud or economic offences or have been used as a facade or a sham for carrying out illegal activities,” the top court said.

Arrested on May 30 last year by the ED, Jain is accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him.