Delhi Court Takes Cognizance Of Offences Under Prevention Of Money Laundering Act, Against Delhi Riots Accused Tahir Hussain [Read Order]

Significantly, the Enforcement Directorate on Saturday filed a Complaint against Tahir under Section 44 & 45 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 for commission of the offence of money laundering as defined under Section 3 read with Section 70, punishable under Section 4 of PMLA, 2002.

"There is prima facie sufficient incriminating material about the involvement of the accused persons. Thus, cognizance of the offence under Section 3 read with Section 70, punishable under Section 4 of PMLA, 2002 is taken against accused No.1 Tahir Hussain and accused No.2 Amit Gupta." (emphasis supplied)

Accused No.1 Tahir Hussain is presently in Judicial Custody and was ordered to be produced on 19.10.2020. The Court ordered that summons be issued to the accused persons for 19.10.2020

Further, on Monday (19^th October), Tahir was produced from Jail no.3 from Tihar Jail (through WebEx) along with Sh. K.K. Manan, Sr. Advocate (through Webex) with Counsels Rizwan & Ankita Brara present in court.

The Court ordered that copies of the charge­sheet and all the accompanying documents in compliance of Section 207 Cr.P.C be supplied to accused no.1 Tahir Hussain.

Since, the summons couldn't be issued to accused No.2 Amit Gupta due to lack of time, the Court ordered that summons be again issued to accused no.2 for next date.

The matter has been put up for the appearance of accused no.2/further proceedings and scrutiny of documents on behalf of accused no.1 Tahir Hussain, on 10.11.2020.

The Enforcement Directorate was permitted to proceed with further investigation, as per law.

Notably, the financial investigation agency was looking into the allegation that Hussain and those linked to him laundered about Rs 1.10 crore funds by using purported shell or dummy companies to fuel the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the subsequent violence.

It may be noted that Tahir Hussain is one of the accused persons who is charged for the murder of IB Officer Ankit Sharma who was killed during the Delhi riots. Hussian has been in custody since March 16 and the Delhi Police has already filed the charge sheet against him.

In July 2020, Delhi Court denied bail to Tahir Hussain in Ankit Sharma murder case. In his bail plea, Tahir had submitted that there is no evidence by way of video footage or CCTV footage to prove that he was present at the scene of the crime at the time of the incident. Further, there is no evidence of abetment or conspiracy to kill Ankit Sharma on his part.