AAP leader Sanjay Singh, who is in custody in a money laundering case related to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam, on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that no summons were issued to him prior to his arrest. Singh's counsel submitted that he was arrested after the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) witness Dinesh Arora made a statement against him in July 2023.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta was hearing submissions on behalf of Singh on his plea challenging his arrest and remand in the money-laundering case. The bench said it would continue hearing the arguments in the matter on April 2.
I (Singh) am named for the first time on July 19, 2023 by one Dinesh Arora. Before this date, there were nine statements by the same Dinesh Arora in which he never took my name, senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, who was representing Singh, said. Arora was granted pardon by a trial court here and made an approver in the case.
The senior counsel said no summons were issued to Singh and the ED officials directly came to his house and arrested him. Singh had also challenged an order of the Delhi High Court which refused to grant him bail in the money laundering case.
The high court had on February 7 rejected the bail application of Singh, who has been re-elected to the Rajya Sabha from Delhi, but directed the trial court to expedite the trial once it starts.
Singh was arrested in the case by the ED on October 4 last year. Before the high court, Singh had sought bail on the grounds that he has been in custody for over three months and no role has been attributed to him in the predicate offence.
The probe agency had in the high court opposed the bail plea and claimed that Singh was involved in acquiring, possessing, concealing, dissipating and using proceeds of the crime generated from the Delhi liquor scam pertaining to the policy period of 2021-22.
The agency had further claimed that the AAP leader has gained illegal money or kickbacks which are proceeds of crime generated from the liquor policy (2021-22) scam and that he has also played a role in conspiracy with others.
The ED's money laundering case stems from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR. According to the CBI and the ED, irregularities were committed while modifying the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 and undue favours were extended to licence holders.
(This report has been published as part of an auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)