Tanisha Rana
Published on: October 17, 2022 at 21:17 IST
Satyendar Jain, a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party and a minister for Delhi, withdrew his petition from the Supreme Court on Monday challenging the transfer of his bail request in a money laundering case from the judge who was hearing the case to a different judge.
The case will now be argued before the trial court for the purpose of bail, it was informed before a bench made up of Justices MR Shah and MM Sundresh.
Jain filed a petition with the Supreme Court to appeal the Delhi High Court’s decision to reject his argument.
On October 11, an apex court bench made up of Justices MR Shah and Krishna Murari gave the Enforcement Directorate (ED) notice and scheduled the case for further consideration on October 31.
When the ED requested a transfer of the case, citing bias on the part of Special Judge Geetanjli Goel, she was in the final stages of hearing arguments in Jain’s bail plea.
ED requested that the case of Jain be transferred from Judge Geetanjli Goel to judge Vikas Dhull, and this request was granted by Principal District and Sessions Court Vinay Kumar Gupta of the Rouse Avenue court.
Jain subsequently filed a petition with the High Court, which on October 1 rejected Jain’s argument and resulted in the current appeal before the Supreme Court.
The CBI had initially registered a case against Jain under Sections 13(2) (criminal misconduct by public servant) read with 13(e) (disproportionate assets) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
On the basis of the claim that Jain had acquired movable property between 2015 and 2017 (the check period), which he was unable to fully account for, the case was filed.
On April 5 of this year, the ED temporarily attached Jain’s immovable properties worth 4.81 crore rupees based on its probe into the money laundering aspect. He was then taken into custody by the ED.
Case Title: Satyendar Kumar Jain vs. ED