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The Enforcement Directorate’s allegation that AAP leader Satyendar Jain’s wife Poonam Jain was a member of a trust which is under a money laundering investigation was based on mistaken identity with a Rohini-based woman with the same name, the defence counsel for two co-accused in the case told a Delhi court Thursday.
The ED had accused Satyendar Jain of being the president of Lala Sher Singh Trust, which is under investigation in the money laundering case against him. The agency had earlier told the court that Poonam was a member of the trust. It was alleged that co-accused Vaibhav Jain was appointed to this trust instead of Jain after he decided to become a minister, but still had effective control.
Advocate Dr Sushil Kumar Gupta, who appeared for co-accused Vaibhav and Ankush Jain, told Special Judge Vikas Dhull that the trust member Poonam Jain is a resident of Rohini. “This is Poonam Jain who is a BCom from Rohini. Poonam Jain, wife of Satyendar Jain, is an architect. They share the same name. She (Jain’s wife) has been implicated by the ED on this basis… They did not even verify the address. This was the basic thing that they could have done as part of their investigation,” Gupta said.
The ED has alleged that accommodation entries were made from Lala Sher Singh Trust to Vaibhav and his mother Sushila Jain, which in turn were used for transfer of land in the name of Swati Jain, wife of Vaibhav Jain, and Sushila.
The agency has alleged that the president of Lala Sher Singh Trust, G S Matharu, in his statement, had stated that entries provided by the trust in favour of Vaibhav and Sushila were against the cash provided by Satyendar Jain.
Gupta had reiterated that accommodation entries could not be counted as proceeds of crime and questioned how Satyendar Jain was in control of the four companies under investigation by the ED. “If you come to the effective conclusion that he was not in effective control over the company, the whole case falls flat,” Gupta argued.
Gupta told the court one statement of Vaibhav recorded on June 16 by the agency was not truthful and not videographed, violating due procedure. He told the court that if the agency had confronted him with Satyendar Jain in a video recording, the “whole case would have fallen”.
On ED allegations that Vaibhav would threaten witnesses in this case, Gupta argued that it was the agency issuing threats to his client. He wrapped up his arguments by stating, “Since they were not getting the answers, they said we gave misleading information. Because they had bias in their mind since the beginning… Just because at some point in time there was an association with Satyendar Jain before 2013, I have been booked,” Gupta told the court.
The ED had arrested Jain in an alleged money laundering case based on a CBI FIR lodged against him in 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption Act under which he was accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him. Co-accused
Vaibhav and Ankush were later arrested in connection with the case.
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