With days to go for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a petition in a special court in Srinagar, urging it to take cognizance of fresh allegations against National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah in the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) case.
A positive order from the court could open the doors for the central agency to register a fresh case against Abdullah and prosecute him, despite the recent relief he got from the J&K High Court, reported Indian Express
Last month, the J&K HC quashed the chargesheet filed by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Abdullah and some other former office-bearers of the JKCA on the ground that the central agency did not have jurisdiction in the case. The court said the ED’s case was based on a CBI chargesheet which had prosecuted the accused for criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy. The predicate offence was criminal breach of trust, which is not a scheduled offence under the PMLA, the court observed.
The court, however, gave the ED the liberty to file a fresh FIR if it found that a predicate scheduled offence under PMLA had been committed. The PMLA has a schedule which lists the offences for which money laundering investigations can be carried out.
In a fresh plea filed last week, the ED has said the CBI did not invoke Section 411 of the Indian Penal Code (or the Ranbir Penal Code), which involves a scheduled offence under the PMLA. It has urged the court to take cognizance, based on evidence presented by the CBI and ED. If the court takes cognizance, the ED can either register a fresh case or file another chargesheet against Abdullah.
IPC Section 411 deals with the offence of dishonestly receiving or retaining stolen property. It states that whoever dishonestly receives or retains stolen property, knowing or having reason to believe it to be stolen, can be punished with imprisonment of up to three years, or with a fine, or both.
In its earlier chargesheet, the ED said that between 2006 and January 2012, when Abdullah was the JKCA president, he misused his position to make illegal appointments of office-bearers to whom he gave financial powers for the purpose of laundering funds
“Investigation also reveals that Dr Farooq Abdullah was instrumental as well as beneficiary of the laundered funds of JKCA,” said the chargesheet, adding that Rs 45 crore was diverted from JKCA’s coffers.
Besides Abdullah, the ED also named former JKCA general secretary Md Saleem Khan and former treasurers Ahsan Ahmad Mirza and Mir Manzoor Gazanffer among others. Mirza and Gazanffer had challenged the ED chargesheet in the J&K HC.
“The accused Ahsan Ahmad Mirza transferred huge amount into his personal bank accounts and then these amounts were further transferred/ paid out, a part withdrawn in cash. Out of the laundered amounts, Rs 1.31 crore was received by Mir Manzoor Gazanffer, who was member of a finance committee of JKCA, between year 2006 to 2009, which was arbitrarily constituted by Dr Farooq Abdullah, the then president of JKCA,” the chargesheet said.
In 2004, the then duly elected treasurer Mukhtar Kanth resigned and Abdullah immediately appointed Mirza as treasurer without holding elections as mandated under the JKCA Rules, 1957, the ED said
“In the JKCA elections held in year 2006, Mir Manzoor Gazanffer was elected as treasurer… and there was a brief court stay upon his acting as treasurer of JKCA when Dr Farooq Abdullah continued Ahsan Ahmad Mirza as the treasurer of JKCA. Upon vacation of stay the same year, Mir Manzoor Gazanffer was not given charge of treasurer and instead a finance committee consisting of Ahsan Ahmad Mirza and Mir Manzoor Gazanffer was constituted by Dr Farooq Abdullah, and both these persons were empowered to jointly operate JKCA bank accounts,” the chargesheet said.
