New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday refused to entertain a plea by Enforcement Directorate (ED) challenging a Telangana High Court order, which allowed YS Bharathi Reddy, the wife of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy, to substitute the property attached by the agency in a money laundering case with fixed deposits.
A bench comprising Justices A S Oka and Sanjay Karol queried the counsel, representing the central agency, whether the immovable property attached was the proceeds of the alleged crime? The counsel, representing Reddy, cited several portions of the HC order, establishing that the property attached were not the actual proceeds of the alleged crime.
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Additional Solicitor General S. Raju, representing ED, contended that they were not but amounted to the equivalent value. The apex court observed that the property attached was not the actual one, which was acquired from the proceeds of the crime and this finding is not disputed by the ED.
The top court, recorded in its order, that it is not petitioner’s (ED) case that the value of the attached property mentioned in the Telangana High Court is incorrect, and "In view of this factual position, we decline to entertain the special leave petition”. The ED had attached the property under money laundering charges in a corruption case, which involved Bharathi Cement.
In the appeal against the HC order, passed in November last year, the ED had contended that the high court had erringly directed the release of the confirmed attached immovable property pertaining to the respondent (Reddy) in lieu of fixed deposit for a sum of Rs 1,36,91,285. The central agency had argued that the order was detrimental to the spirit and object of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
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