Court extends actor Leena Paul's custody in Rs 200 cr money laundering case

A Delhi court has extended the custodial interrogation of actor Leena Maria Paul till October 16 in a money laundering case related to extortion of Rs 200 crore from a businessman's wife.

New Delhi:A Delhi court has extended the custodial interrogation of actor Leena Maria Paul till October 16 in a money laundering case related to extortion of Rs 200 crore from a businessman's wife here. Special Judge Parveen Singh also extended the ED custody of Paul's husband Sukesh Chandrasekhar, an accused in 21 cases, by 11 days after the couple were produced before the court on October 12 on expiry of their 3-day custodial interrogation granted earlier.

The couple allegedly duped former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh's wife Aditi Singh. The probe agency had sought the extension of couple's custody by 11 days each.

“After perusing the record, I find that to establish the money trail of the proceeds of crime and to confront the accused with the statements of other accused, further custodial interrogation of the accused is required. However, I do not find any grounds for sending accused Leena Maria Paul to ED custody for 11 days,” the judge said.

The application, moved by ED's special public prosecutor Atul Tripathi, claimed that further custodial interrogation of the accused was essential to determine the role of various other persons who facilitated the offence of money laundering and how/by whom the proceeds of crime was placed, layered and integrated into the system.

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The case was filed on the basis of an FIR lodged by Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing on Aditi Singh's complaint that a man posing as a senior official of the Law Ministry in June last year had offered to help secure bail for her husband, who was in jail at that time, in return for money. Shivinder Singh was arrested in a money laundering case related to the alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL) in 2019.

According to the police, Chandrasekhar, an accused in 21 cases, including the Election Commission bribery case, had made the call to Aditi and he was arrested in August. At the time of the incident, Chandrasekhar was lodged in Delhi's Rohini jail and was running an extortion racket from behind the bars.

The police later arrested his two associates, who ran operations for him from outside the prison, and two senior officials of the Rohini jail for aiding Chandrasekhar.

During the course of investigation, the police had found that a manager of a bank in Connaught Place and his two associates were involved in the dubious transactions for circulation of funds and arrangement of cash and the three were subsequently arrested, police had said. An assistant jail superintendent and the deputy superintendent of Rohini Jail were found involved in the racket and were arrested, the police said.

PTI