New Delhi: The Rouse Avenue court on Tuesday reserved an order on the bail plea of AAP MP Sanjay Singh in the Delhi Excise policy money laundering case. He has been in ED custody since October 4.
Special judge M K Nagpal reserved the order after hearing rebuttal arguments on the bail plea of Sanjay Singh and reserved the order.
The court asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to file written submissions, if any, within two working days. The accused has also been asked to file a rejoinder within one day thereafter. The court will pronounce the order on December 21 at 4 pm.
Senior advocate Mohit Mathur appeared for Sanjay Singh. He submitted that Sanjay Singh was not called even once for questioning before October 4, 2023.
He further argued, "My (Singh's) legal notice sparked problems for them. Then they started noticing me."
"I am not asking for discharge. I am asking for bail. My personal liberty is sacrosanct in the Constitution," the Senior advocate submitted.
He also raised contradictions in the statement of accused turn approver Dinesh Arora, Chandan Reddy and other witnesses. He submitted that Dinesh Arora's statement is hearsay. Now he has a pseudo-name Alpha. How can one assume that Dinesh Arora is telling the truth?
It is a business deal and can't see corruption in every business deal. Alpha said he got money from Nitin Kapoor who denied this fact, he added.
He further submitted that as per Sravan Singh, Dinesh Arora is a tainted witness. Approver is guiltily accomplished. He also argued that when we talk about proceeds of crime, there should be some money. In this case, there is no source of money.
You keep me in custody for 60 days and you have nothing against me, he added. On the last date, it was submitted by the ED that there is evidence of bribe demand, statements and also recovered some documents.
Special counsel Zoheb Hossain for ED argued that liquor policy was being formulated and in lieu of that bribes were being given is accepted all the way to the SC.
During his arguments, he also referred to the High Court order in Satyendra Jain's case that the Court has to see the past trend and attendant circumstances.
He further argued there are statements under Section 50 of PMLA that are to be considered while deciding the bail application.
On the point of the past trends, he referred to the statement of Tushar Mehra, owner of Anant Wines who said that Sarvesh Mishra was demanding bribes for the liquor business in Punjab on behalf of Sanjay Singh.
The special counsel also submitted that in the material we have Alpha (protected witness) has confirmed that he has given money to Sarvesh Mishra.
He further argued that there is the statement of Dinesh Arora's 164 statements that were given without any pressure or influence. Special counsel Zoheb referred to the SC judgment in Suresh Chandra Bahri where it has said that inducement is necessary to turn an accused into an approver. SC recognises that some degree of inducement is implicit.
"Merely because he has not named somebody earlier does not make it that if he has named them at a later stage becomes invalid when a valid reason has been given. He has said that these are powerful people and there was a threat. There is an acceptable reason that he has given, the ED's counsel argued.
Zoheb Hossain submitted that certain documents were found from Sanjay Singh. The documents found on him were photographs of the documents. The signature shown in the photo shows the source of the documents which are not on court records.
It showed that a person showing that he has not to do anything with the scam is keeping an eye on the documents. This shows the influence of the petitioner. It shows that he can get documents of an ongoing investigation through his power, the counsel argued.
The special counsel had further argued that Sanjay Singh's name was rightly used in three places and one place it was a typing error. (ANI)
