Delhi court defers hearing on separatist leader Satish Shah's bail plea till April 2

A Delhi court on Saturday deferred the hearing till April 2 on a bail plea of separatist leader Shabir Shah, arrested in a decade-old money laundering case.

Shah's bail plea came up for hearing before Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora.

The court had on February 18 sought response from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Shah's bail plea.

The application was moved before the court on the grounds of parity after the Delhi High Court recently granted bail to co-accused and alleged hawala dealer Mohammad Aslam Wani in the case.

The application claimed that Shah was wrongly and falsely implicated in the case, which was registered in 2007 for the alleged offence committed in 2005.

Shah, who is in judicial custody and lodged in Tihar Central Jail, had said in his application that Wani has already been granted bail and that there was lack of evidence against him.

It claimed that Shah was "innocent, having deep roots in the society and a permanent resident of Srinagar, and, therefore, there was no chance of absconding or tampering with the prosecution evidence".

Shah was arrested on July 25, 2017 in the case in which the Special Cell of Delhi Police had also arrested Wani. It claimed that Rs 63 lakh was recovered from Wani, out of which Rs 52 lakh was allegedly to be delivered to Shah.

The court had in August 2017 denied bail to Shah after ED submitted that it was probing whether he had received money from "enemy countries" like Pakistan to promote terrorism in India.