Court extends judicial custody of CA in Rs 8,000-cr PMLA case

A Delhi court today extended by two weeks the judicial custody of a chartered accountant in a money-laundering case allegedly linked to political entities.
Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Pandey extended the custody of CA Rajesh Agarwal till July 17 after he was produced after before the court.
Public prosecutor Nitesh Rana moved an application for the extension of Agarwal's JC which was allowed by the court.
According to Enforcement Directorate (ED), Agarwal is associated with some transactions involving a firm, allegedly linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti, which is under scanner for suspected tax evasion.
Meanwhile, the court took cognisance of the charge sheet filed against two Delhi-based brothers Surendra Jain and Virendra Jain in the case.

The court also extended their judicial custody till August 9.

The ED had arrested the accused on March 20. It had claimed that at least 90 shell firms were under its scanner and it had identified 26 of them for allegedly laundering around Rs 62.20 crore.
The case emerged after the ED filed a criminal complaint last month under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on a charge sheet of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office against certain individuals and firms.
The charge sheet had alleged that these individuals and firms had provided "accommodation entries by accepting funds from their beneficiaries through mediators and converted the same into share premium transactions in the beneficiary company".

The ED had also recently attached assets valued at Rs 64.70 crore of a firm based here and this investment, it had claimed, was "managed by" Radisson Blu, a luxury hotel in the national capital.
It alleged that the entire racket involved around Rs 8,000 crore of slush funds and has detected about half of it.