The Supreme Court will on Thursday hear the petition filed by Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez challenging a Delhi court’s order to file charges against her and alleged fraudster Sukesh Chandrashekar in the case. $200 crore money laundering case.
A bench of Justices PK Mishra and AS Chandorkar passed the order after Fernandes’ counsel mentioned the matter on Tuesday for urgent listing.
The petition was filed against a Delhi court’s May 30 decision to file charges against her in the case investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Jacqueline challenged the lower court’s order directly before the Supreme Court without resorting to the Delhi High Court.
Advocate Rameza Hakim who appeared on behalf of the actor said, “I have faced charges in the ED case. This is a strange case because I am a prosecution witness in the scheduled crime while I have been named as an accused in the PMLA case.”
The bench said: “We will publish the matter the day after tomorrow.”
Hakim told the court that she had earlier filed an application in the ED case seeking consent.
However, as the CEO opposed the same, Fernandes withdrew from the same decision on April 16.
The May 30 order was passed by Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Prashant Sharma who held that a prima facie case has been made out against Fernandes based on the materials submitted by the ED, where persons accused of committing the offense (money laundering) should be charged under Section 3 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, which is punishable under Section 4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.
Read also: Jacqueline Fernandez turns approver in money laundering case against ‘fraudster’ Sukesh Chandrashekar
Later, on June 3, charges were formally framed against Chandrashekar and Fernandes among others, following which the trial in the case began.
The second supplementary complaint filed by the ED against Fernandes stated that she was in constant contact with Sukesh and received valuable gifts from him. The ED informed the court that Fernandes remained in constant contact with the alleged fraudster despite knowing about his criminal antecedents. She used the proceeds of crime and enjoyed it which clearly showed that she was not a ‘victim’ in the entire chain of events.
The ED case arose out of an alleged blackmail case where Sukesh abetted Aditi Singh.
It is alleged that using fake calls, encrypted applications and fabricated identities, the accused convinced the complainant Aditi Singh and her family members to part with huge sums of money.
The prosecution alleged that Sukesh generated proceeds of crime amounting to more than $200 crore through extortion, cheating, impersonation and criminal intimidation, after which he concealed, possessed, transferred, applied and floated the same untainted property with the help of his associates.
Sukesh has several extortion and extortion cases against him in six cities. He had impersonated senior government officials through various phone calls from prison between 2020 and 21 and carried out an operation. $Stealing Rs 215 crore by extorting this amount in installments from Aditi Singh, promising to release her husband on bail.
The main case was investigated by Delhi Police who arrested Sukesh in 2017. Later, the ED took over the money laundering investigation and arrested him in 2021.
The executive alleged that the proceeds of the alleged crime were routed through various bank accounts, remittance channels, cash delivery and fictitious entities. In this case, Fernandes was implicated along with Lena Pauls (Chandrashekar’s wife) and several others by the ED.
