Money laundering case: Court directs ED to file supplementary charge sheet against Virbhadra Singh

A special court today directed Enforcement Directorate to file its supplementary charge sheet by February 1 in a money laundering case linked to former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh.

Special Judge Santosh Snehi Mann took note of a status report filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) regarding its ongoing probe in the case and said that enough time has already been granted to it.
In its report, the agency claimed that it recently recorded the statements of several witnesses and investigated bank transactions. According to sources, the ED has also recorded the statements of 83-year-old Singh and his 62-year-old wife Pratibha Singh in the case.

The court, which had earlier granted time to the ED for filing its supplementary charge sheet in the case, had directed it to submit a status report after the agency had on January 18 sought one more month to complete the probe. The ED had earlier filed a charge sheet against Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) agent Anand Chauhan in the case and told the court that the investigation was going on against other accused in the matter. Chauhan, arrested on July 9, 2016 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), was granted bail on January 2 in the money laundering case.

In a separate case filed by the CBI in relation to the matter, Singh, his wife and Chauhan were chargesheeted along with others. The couple, who have not been arrested so far, and the other accused are facing trial in the CBI case. The other accused in the CBI case are Universal Apple Associate owner Chunni Lal Chauhan, stamp paper vendor Joginder Singh Ghalta, Managing Director of Tarani Infrastructure Vakamulla Chandrasekhar, and co-accused Lawan Kumar Roach, Prem Raj and Ram Prakash Bhatia.

The court had earlier summoned them after taking cognisance of the CBI charge sheet, running into over 500 pages having statements of around 225 witnesses and containing 442 documents. The CBI had claimed that Singh had amassed assets worth around Rs 10 crore which were disproportionate to his total income during his tenure as a Union minister. The matter was transferred by the Supreme Court to the Delhi High Court which, on April 6, 2016, had asked the CBI not to arrest Singh and directed him to join the probe.

On November 5 last year, the apex court had transferred Singh's plea from the Himachal Pradesh High Court to the Delhi High Court, saying it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, but "simply" transferring the petition "in the interest of justice and to save the institution (judiciary) from any embarrassment". The ED had filed a separate case based on the CBI FIR.