New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday sought the stand of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on a plea by Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain challenging a lower order to transfer the money laundering case against him to another court.
Justice Yogesh Khanna issued notice on Jain’s plea and asked the investigating agency to file a “short reply” while listing the case for further consideration on September 28.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, appearing for the ED, sought time from the court to state its stand on the plea.
Jain has challenged the order passed on September 23 by Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta transferring the case to Special Judge Vikas Dhull from Special Judge Geetanjali Goel who was hearing his bail plea.
Senior advocates N Hariharan and Rahul Mehra, representing the AAP leader, contended that there was urgency in the matter and even the Supreme Court has asked that the bail plea be decided in 14 days.
Hariharan said that a trial court was hearing Jain’s bail application since August until the agency decided to file a plea for transfer of the matter to another judge and there was no occasion to send it to another judge.
“The order itself states the judge is upright and honest. Where is the question of transfer then? The bias is unfounded. It sends a wrong message,” he argued.
Last week, Jain had sought an urgent listing of his challenge to the transfer order while contending that the order of the district judge was illegal.
The agency, in its transfer application before the district judge, had argued that while there was no complaint against the judge hearing the matter, it was “a case of probable bias” in favour of the Delhi Minister and there was an apprehension that it might not get an independent and impartial hearing.
Allowing ED’s plea, the district judge had said in the order that the overall circumstances in the case could raise apprehension of a “probable bias”.
“In my considered opinion, the judge is a very upright officer. However, all the circumstances taken together are sufficient to raise a reasonable apprehension in the mind of the petitioner as a common man, not of any actual bias, but a probable bias,” he had stated.
Earlier on September 19, the Principal District Judge had stayed the proceedings before special judge Goel while seeking the stand of Jain and other co-accused on ED’s application seeking transfer of the case to another judge.
Jain had then moved to the Supreme Court which subsequently directed the district judge to decide the agency’s application for transfer expeditiously.
The ED had arrested Jain and two others in the money laundering case based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR lodged against the AAP leader in 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Jain is accused of having laundered money through four companies linked to him.
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