Delhi Waqf Board Money laundering case: Court issues notice to ED on MLA Amanat Ullah Khan's bail plea

New Delhi [India], October 21 (ANI): The Rouse Avenue court on Monday issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Amanat Ullah Khan's bail plea in the Delhi Waqf Board Money laundering case.
He was arrested by the ED on September 2 in connection with the purchase of Rs 36 crore property in Okhla.
Special judge CBI judge Vishal Gogne issued notice to the ED for its response and listed the matter for hearing on October 29.
Advocate Rajat Bhardwaj alongwith Kaustubh Khanna appeared for Amanat Ullah Khan.
The CBI registered the first FIR on November 23, 2016, on the accusations that the accused while acting as the Chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board had committed the offence of criminal misconduct and entered into a criminal conspiracy with other unknown persons, for doing corrupt, illegal and irregular practices in the matters of Delhi Waqf Board, thereby resulting in consequential loss to the exchequer.
The plea further stated that while the investigations in the said FIR were pending, 2nd FIR by the ACB on the same/similar set of accusations was registered after 4 years on 28.1.2020.
The plea claimed that in the charge-sheet in the 1st FIR on 13.8.2022, it was mentioned that no bribe amount was paid to the accused regarding tenancy of properties and also found several other accusations to be mere "administrative irregularities" including
violation of the norms etc.
It is also stated that any illegal monetary benefit or transaction having accrued to the accused was never found.
Soon after the filing of the charge-sheet in the 1st FIR, the ACB Delhi arrested the accused after 6 years of the 1st FIR and 2 years 8 months after the 2nd FIR in a blatant abuse of the process of law, the plea said.
It is further submitted that the Head of ACB, Delhi itself chose to call upon the ED to initiate investigations under PMLA in a manner unknown to the settled tenets of law and thereby abdicated its responsibilities to unearth any proceeds of crime.
The ED proceeded to register an ECIR on said communication and impliedly considered both the FIRs as Scheduled/Predicate offences.
The Trial Court in the 2nd FIR registered by ACB had granted regular bail to the accused while clearly observing that no bribe was ever paid him and no loss has been caused to the exchequer.
In the CBI case, the accused had appeared before the Court and was granted bail, the plea said.
During the investigation, ED arrested certain accused and filed a Prosecution Complaint wherein the entire accusations revolved only around the accused though he was not formally arraigned as an accused. (ANI)