New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday ordered Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Amanatullah Khan’s release from jail in the Delhi Waqf Board money laundering case, citing a lack of prosecution sanction against him. The court also denied taking cognisance of the supplementary chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against Khan in the case.
Khan has been in judicial custody for two months. With his release, all AAP leaders will be out of jail.
Directing that Khan be released on a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh, Special Judge Jitendra Singh of Rouse Avenue court said that there was sufficient evidence to proceed against him but no prosecution sanction had been obtained, The Indian Express reported.
The case against Khan
- Alleged irregularities committed during Khan’s tenure as the chairman of the Delhi Waqf Board between 2016 and 2021.
- Khan had illegally appointed members to the board, causing a loss to the exchequer.
- Rs 36 crore was laundered into properties by Khan’s agents.
Evidence against Khan
The agency earlier also told the court that a diary belonging to one of the accused could be used as evidence against Khan. “In his diary, Kausar Imam Siddiqui (an accused) had written Khan’s name multiple times. Many transactions are mentioned in the diary and the financial statements of the accused that we have analysed match,” the ED, represented by deputy director G Subramaniyan and special public prosecutors Manish Jain and Simon Benjamin, had said.
FIRs
The ED case against Khan stems from two FIRs: one filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) concerning alleged irregularities in Waqf Board appointments; and another by the Delhi Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) regarding an alleged case of disproportionate assets.
Khan was granted bail in the CBI case as he was not arrested. In the ACB case, he was granted regular bail after being arrested.
Earlier in September, following Khan’s arrest, advocate Rajat Bharadwaj had argued before a Delhi court that the central probe agency had no fresh material to arrest the accused. Bharadwaj had also argued that the ED had ignored the CBI’s chargesheet in this case. “In the CBI chargesheet (against Khan), it is said that there were administrative irregularities and not corruption,” he had said.