Satyendar Jain sent to ED custody till June 9
Delhi health minister Jain was arrested on Monday by central agency in connection with a money laundering case
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday allowed custodial interrogation of Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case that was rubbished by the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal as “motivated and completely unsubstantiated” .
Special judge Geetanjali Goel accepted the contention of Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the ED, that the interrogation was necessary to ascertain the accusations pertaining to role of the accused in laundering proceeds of crime, unearth the source of cash, to establish the money trail and to determine the role of various other persons.
Jain was arrested on Monday by the central agency. He was sent to custody till June 9.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Kejriwal said, “I studied the case files myself. The case filed against Jain is bogus and completely motivated and unsubstantiated. The AAP and its governments are committed to the virtues of honesty, rectitude and deshbhakti (patriotism). Neither do we engage in corruption of even a single penny nor do we tolerate any kind of graft. We consider corruption the highest form of treason. We will lay down our lives if need be but not engage in corruption.”
According to the ED, companies “beneficially owned and controlled by Jain” received accommodation entries amounting to Rs 4.81 crore from shell companies against the cash transferred to Kolkata-based entry operators through hawala. The case is based on a CBI FIR lodged against Jain in 2017 in which he was accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him.
Even as the court declined Jain’s request for newspapers, books and home-cooked food, it said that Jain would be given food according to his beliefs, a demand which was not opposed by ED.
Aam Aadmi Party MLAs Saurabh Bhardwaj, Somnath Bharti, Madan Lal and several party supporters reached the court for the hearing. Jain’s wife and his two daughters were also present in the court.
At the press conference, Kejriwal called Jain a “true patriot” and said that every AAP worker is “always ready” to go to jail to keep their “movement of honest governance” alive.
The AAP convener said that the agencies under the direct control of the BJP-led Centre have filed several such “bogus cases” against AAP MLAs. “All of them were acquitted from the court of law. I have been a victim of such cases too. They’ve subjected me to so many raids but they could never frame me. Eventually, Jain too will be declared innocent. Jain is a staunch patriot. Jails can never break his honesty and courage but only add on to it. He gave the world a unique model of Mohalla Clinics. He gave the nation an example of what a health system should be like,” Kejriwal said.
Warring accuses Kejriwal of double standards CHANDIGARH : Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring on Tuesday asked Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal as to why he was feeling so desperate and frustrated over the arrest of his health minister Satyendar Jain by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
“Your reaction looks like that of someone with a frightened and guilty conscience,” he told Kejriwal in a statement here. Reacting to the allegations of “political vendetta” levelled by Kejriwal over Jain’s arrest, Warring asked: “How come when your government does the same thing in Punjab, it is zero tolerance towards corruption and when someone else does it with you, it is vendetta?”
Warring pointed out that Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann after sacking and getting arrested his health minister Vijay Singla had claimed that there was an audio recording about demand for bribe, but even after a week, the recording has not been made public. “The Punjab Police, too, have not been able to recover or establish anything against Singla,” he said.
Warring advised Kejriwal not to have double standards on corruption. “Similar things have happened in Delhi and Punjab, with only one difference: While you have already held the Punjab minister guilty and crucified him for reasons best known to you, you are blatantly defending your Delhi minister despite serious charges of money laundering against him,” he claimed.