ED summons Delhi minister Satyendar Jain's wife in money laundering case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has asked Delhi minister Satyendar Jain's wife Poonam Jain to be present before the agency next week while it extracts information from the digital devices seized in a money laundering case against him and others, officials said Friday.

Poonam is required to be present before the investigation officer at the ED headquarters here during the extraction of data from the devices which were seized during searches conducted in this case earlier, they said.

Satyendar Jain, 57, was arrested by the ED on May 30 under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is in judicial custody at present.

He is a minister without a portfolio in the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government. Jain has held health, power and few other charges.

The agency has conducted at least two rounds of raids against his family and associates after it arrested the minister in the PMLA case linked to alleged hawala dealings. It also arrested two of his business associates this month.

The agency had claimed to have seized "unexplained" cash worth Rs 2.85 crore and 133 gold coins after the first round of raids conducted on June 6 against Jain's family and others.

The ED had alleged, that "during the period 2015-16, when Satyendar Kumar Jain was a public servant, the companies beneficially owned and controlled by him received accommodation entries to the tune of Rs 4.81 crore from shell (paper) companies against cash transferred to Kolkata-based entry operators through the hawala route".

"These amounts were utilised for direct purchase of land or for repayment of loan taken for the purchase of agricultural land in and around Delhi," the ED had said.

The money laundering case against the AAP minister stems from an August 2017 FIR filed by the CBI against him and others on charges of alleged possession of disproportionate assets.

A chargesheet was filed by the CBI in December, 2018, stating that the alleged disproportionate assets were worth Rs 1.47 crore, about 217 per cent more than his known sources of income, during 2015-17.