Satyendar Jain bail: SC directs sessions court to hear on Sept 22 ED plea seeking transfer of case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed a sessions court here to take up and decide on September 22 an Enforcement Directorate application seeking transfer of bail hearing of Delhi minister Satyendar Jain in a money laundering case to another judge.

Observing that any accused is entitled to expeditious hearing of his bail plea, a three-judge bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud asked the principal district and sessions judge of the Rouse Avenue court to take up the petition for hearing.

''We clarify that any party aggrieved by the decision on transfer petition can seek appropriate remedies available in law. The forum for hearing of bail will depend upon the decision of the District Judge,'' said the bench also comprising Justices Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Jain, mentioned the matter before the bench and sought urgent hearing.

Sibal submitted that seven hearings took place and the Additional Solicitor General S V Raju was asked to come on September 15.

The ASG, however, moved an application seeking transfer of the case, he said.

Raju stated that if the petitioner is aggrieved, he can go to the high court.

Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta had on September 19 stayed the proceedings of the bail hearing before Special Judge Geetanjali Goel and issued notice to Jain and other co-accused in the case on an ED application seeking transfer of the case to another judge.

The judge had directed the respondents to file their reply to ED's plea by September 30.

The ED has sought the transfer of the matter from Goel to any other judge.

The agency, in its plea, raised certain contentions related to the bail arguments being heard by the special judge.

Goel, while hearing the lengthy arguments on the bail petitions of Jain and the co-accused -- Ankush Jain and Vaibhav Jain -- in the money laundering case, had pulled up the ED over its probe in the matter in the past few hearings.

All three accused are currently in judicial custody.

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.

Recently Special Judge Goel also took cognisance of the Prosecution Complaint (charge sheet) filed by the ED against Jain, his wife, and eight others, including four firms, in connection with the money laundering case.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)