Court sent 3 accused to judicial custody
New Delhi : A Delhi court on Friday sent three people arrested in a case related to alleged irregularities in Delhi Waqf Board recruitments, including AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan, to 14-day judicial custody till December 1. The development comes after the court on Thursday accepted the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) request to take accused Zeeshan Haider, Dawood Nasir and Javed Imam Siddiqui into custody for a day.
While the financial probe agency had sought six more days of custody of the accused, Rouse Avenue Court special judge Geetanjali Goyal extended it by only one day. On Friday, advocate Nitish Rana, appearing for the accused persons, had opposed the agency’s application, claiming that the money trail is not established, and there is no quantum of proceeds of crime.
He further said, “The arrest itself is illegal and against the mandate of Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The remand application deserves to be dismissed for lack of merit.” On Thursday, Rana had argued that the ED had no new grounds to seek extension of his custody. On Monday, Special Judge Arvind Kumar had accepted the agency’s request for three days’ custody. On November 11, the court had rejected ED’s request for 14 days’ custodial interrogation of him.
ED’s custody demand is to trace the proceeds of crime, determine the role of other accused persons in facilitating the offense of money laundering, confront the accused persons with each other and other persons, unearth the truth and This was done to find out the collusion of key players involved in money laundering. Last time, Rana had argued that the alleged proceeds of crime were in no way related to the scheduled crime. Haider’s lawyer Nitish Rana argued that he has already joined the investigation four times and the ED has arrested the accused illegally.
He had further argued that there was not enough material available with the ED to arrest the accused persons. It was argued that giving vague answers and non-cooperation cannot be a ground for arresting them. Earlier, following Rana’s allegations of ‘illegal detention’, the judge had sent the accused to judicial custody till November 12. Rana had claimed that the ED produced his clients after almost 30 hours of custody, exceeding the 24-hour limit prescribed by law and that my client has not made any disposal of the proceeds of crime.
The case involves allegations that Khan illegally recruited 32 people as chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board in violation of norms and government guidelines. On Monday, on the plea of accused Nasir to direct the investigating agency to conduct the investigation under audio-visual CCTV surveillance, the court had ordered him to follow the directions given in the said decision of the Supreme Court in a certain case. The judge had also ordered that the accused persons will be medically examined every 24 hours and the ED will allow the lawyers of the accused to meet them daily between 6 pm and 7 pm till the next date of hearing.
