Money-laundering case: Supreme Court denies interim bail to Punjab AAP MLA Jaswant Singh for poll campaign

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, May 29

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to grant interim bail to Punjab AAP MLA Jaswant Singh — arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering probe linked to a bank fraud case — to campaign in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.

Polling will take place for 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab in the seventh and last phase of elections on June 1.

A Vacation Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Aravind Kumar, however, issued notice to the ED and asked the probe agency to respond in his petition against arrest as well as his application for interim bail.

On behalf of the petitioner, senior counsel Vikram Chaudhri and advocate Nikhil Jain urged the Bench to grant him interim bail.

However, the Bench made it clear that it was not inclined to grant relief to the AAP MLA without hearing the ED.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had earlier dismissed his plea challenging his arrest, observing that there was no illegality. “We do not find any manifest illegality in the orders of remand and subsequent proceedings”, the high court had said.

An MLA from Amargarh, Jaswant Singh contended that he was arrested in violation of Section 19 (1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

However, the high court had pointed out that written grounds of arrest were served on him as borne out by his signatures which amounted to substantive compliance of Section 19(1).

The AAP MLA was arrested on November 6, 2023, and the written grounds of arrest were supplied to him the same day, the high court had noted.

The CBI conducted raids in May last year on premises linked to Jaswant Singh in connection with a Rs 40 crore bank fraud.

In September 2022, the ED had conducted raids on several premises related to him as part of a money laundering probe linked to the alleged bank loan fraud. The ED had seized Rs 32 lakh cash, mobile phones and hard drives during the raids.