Moin Qureshi bribery case: Delhi High Court rejects plea by Sathish Sana, Pradeep Koneru against ED, CBI probe

The Delhi High Court on Friday rejected the plea filed by businessmen Sathish Babu Sana and Pradeep Koneru seeking quashing of the money laundering case allegedly involving them and meat exporter Moin Qureshi..A Division Bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna also rejected the plea filed by Koneru challenging the CBI case. .The Court gave the prima facie finding that both Sana and Koneru had committed the offence of money laundering as per Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). "Sathish Babu Sana and Pradeep Koneru have, thus, prima facie committed offence of money laundering as defined in Section 3 of the PMLA, 2002 by directly or indirectly indulging in, knowingly assisting, knowingly a party and actually involved in all or any process or activity connected with the proceeds of crime including its concealment, possession, acquisition or use and projecting or claiming it as untainted property," the Bench said. It said that even though both these accused were arrayed as witnesses in the CBI case, they can be made accused in the money laundering case. "Having regard to the Supreme Court‟s decision in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary (Supra) and the fact that the petitioners are involved in the case of money laundering, we find that proceedings under PMLA have been rightly initiated against them. The petitioners have challenged their summoning, which in our opinion is just and proper to unearth the roots of the money trail. Finding no merit in the averments raised by the petitioners, these petitions and pending applications are accordingly dismissed," the Court ultimately said. However, the Court said that interim protection from coercive action granted to both the accused will continue for the next two weeks. .Both Sana and Koneru argued that they were named as witnesses by the ED and the CBI. They also sought a declaration that Section 50(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) is unconstitutional. Section 50(2) empowers the ED to summon any person whose attendance is considered necessary "whether to give evidence or to produce any records during the course of any investigation or proceeding" under the PMLA..The allegation against Koneru is that he had paid money to Qureshi to get favours for his two family members accused in the Emaar case probed by CBI's Hyderabad unit.It was alleged that former CBI Director AP Singh was involved in the exchange of favours..In October 2018, Sana had filed a written complaint with the CBI against Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad, alleging that they were extorting money from him in the name of a high-ranking CBI official promising that they will help him.Based on this complaint, CBI registered a case against the Prasad brothers as well as the Investigating Officer in that case Devender Kumar, and Rakesh Asthana, who was then Special Director of the CBI.This FIR led to a turf war within the country’s premier investigation agency. While allegations were made against Asthana that an amount of ₹5 crore was agreed to avoid Sana’s further harassment by the CBI, Asthana alleged that it was CBI Director Alok Verma who took a bribe of ₹2 crore to provide him relief from arrest. The government had removed both Verma and his deputy Asthana from the CBI. Asthana later became the Commissioner of the Delhi Police while Verma resigned from service..Senior Advocate Siddharth Aggarwal with advocates Stuti Gujral, Shaurya Singh, Saikh Bakhtiyar, Rudrali Patil and Akshat Gupta appeared for Sathish Sana. Senior Advocates Mukul Rohtagi and Jayant Bhushan with advocates Devanshi Singh, Anirudha Deshmukh, Mahesh Agarwal, Rishi Agrawala, Ankit Banati, Abhay Agnihotri and Tarini Khurana represented Pradeep Koneru. ED was represented by its Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain as well as advocates Vivek Gurnani, Kartik Sabharwal, Baibhav and Manisha Dubey.Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma with advocates Ripu Daman Bhardwaj, Amit Gupta and Vikramaditya appeared for the CBI. .[Read Judgment]