Money laundering case: Hearing on Rohit Tandon's bail plea today

New Delhi [India], Mar. 9 (ANI): The hearing over bail for controversial lawyer Rohit Tandon, who was arrested in connection with a money laundering case post demonetisation, will continue in a Delhi Court today. Tandon's bail was denied earlier on the grounds of him possibly influencing other prosecution witnesses pertaining to this case. Besides Tandon, Kolkata-based businessman Paras M Lodha and Kotak Mahindra bank manager Ashish Kumar, were also arrested in separate Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases. Last month, the Enforcement Directorate issued a provisional attachment order attaching movable and immovable properties worth Rs. 6,84,26,500 of Lodha, Tandon and others in the money laundering case. The Investigation also revealed that post demonetisation, Lodha along with others illegally exchanged demonetised currency of Rohit Tandon and others into monetized form on commission basis with the help of Suman, Amranjay Kumar, Atul Kumar Aggarwal, Manoj Kumar Aggarwal and others including Hawala operators. In this process of illegal exchange, Amranjay Kumar, Atul Kumar Aggarwal and Manoj Kumar Aggarwal have been the direct beneficiaries and knowingly assisted in the offence of money laundering by the possession and acquisition of the properties involved in money laundering. Since the active role of Lodha surfaced during the investigation, he was arrested under section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 on December 2 last year. He is now under judicial custody. Lodha was held in Mumbai by the Enforcement Directorate after they recovered huge cache of new currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 from a Delhi law firm which belonged to advocate Rohit Tandon and Chennai based businessman Sekhar Reddy. Income Tax officials also claimed that they seized Rs. 132 crore in currency notes including Rs. 34 crore in 2,000 notes, and 177 kilograms gold from fourteen of Reddy's premises. Tandon was arrested last year in December, after the Crime Branch and Delhi Police had carried out raids at the office of his firm T&T Law and seized nearly Rs 13.5 crore, of which Rs 2.6 crore was in new banknotes released after demonetization. (ANI)