The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been deceiving the court by pursuing the money-laundering case against Pune businessman Hasan Ali Khan on the basis of fabricated and non-existent documents, his lawyer said on Wednesday
Arguing on Ali's bail in the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court, lawyer Amit Desai alleged that the ED had withheld papers received from other countries on the verification of Ali's bank transactions there. “The ED had told the court that it has sent Letter Rogatory to the U.K., Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and the U.S. It said it has got part replies… from the U.S. It is lying…”
“What is the credibility of any document when an independent investigation with the Swiss police has confirmed that there were no such documents” he asked. “The ED has deceived the court into taking cognisance of certain documents.”
Ali filed fresh documents in the court last month, alleging that communications between the ED and some other countries hinted that there were no dubious transactions in hisaccounts.
“UBS has directly confirmed to the ED that nothing of this sort [dubious transactions] has happened in his account,” Mr. Desai said.
“Why are the accused grilled in 2011 when the documents are known to be fictitious and non-existent before 2008? When the ED came to the court, it accused Hasan Ali of [laundering] Rs. 8 billion dollars. When it was cornered, it has now said it is $793 million.”
This month, the ED filed two replies to the bail application. It denied the allegations made by the accused and said the documents he referred to were not the subject matter of the complaint.
The arguments on the bail application will continue on Thursday.
