Ratul Puri to spend three more days in ED custody in connection with AgustaWestland

A Special CBI Court in New Delhi today extended the custody of Kamal Nath’s nephew Ratul Puri with Enforcement Directorate in connection with the AgustaWestland case by three more days..Ratul Puri was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) earlier this month. He was then remanded to ED custody which was extended from time to time..Before the Court of CBI Judge Arvind Kumar, the ED today sought an extension of Ratul Puri’s remand by 3 days..Appearing for ED, Special Public Prosecutor DP Singh argued that a search was carried at the office of Ratul Puri and some incriminating documents were recovered. It was thus necessary to confront Ratul Puri with these leads as well as other accused in connection with the recovered documents, he contended..ED also reiterated that Puri was evasive and uncooperative..Appearing through Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, Puri argued that recovery of new documents could not be a ground to extend Puri’s ED remand on every occasion..He reiterated that Puri had no connection with any of the entities and emails under the ED scanner in the AgustaWestland case..After hearing the parties, the Court decided to extend the remand by 3 days..The role of Ratul Puri in the AgustaWestland case surfaced after the deportation of Rajiv Saxena and Sushen Mohan Gupta from Dubai earlier this year. As per the prosecution’s case, there is incriminating evidence against Puri, including the diary of Sushen Mohan Gupta and email recovered from Rajiv Saxena, which showed that Puri was in receipt of the proceeds of the crime in the AgustaWestland deal..The Enforcement Directorate has claimed that Puri is a key link to unearth the modus operandi adopted by all other accused persons to settle the proceeds of crime. It is alleged that Puri used the guise of shell companies to accumulate the proceeds of the crime, which were then parked and laundered to other desired beneficiaries..Last month, the CBI Court, as well as the High Court, had refused to grant anticipatory bail to Puri on the ground that the investigation in the case with respect to his role was at a crucial stage..Puri would be produced before the CBI Court on September 19.