Delhi High Court junks actor Jacqueline Fernandez's plea against ED's FIR
Justice Anish Dayal dismissed her plea, which also sought to quash the second supplementary chargesheet of the Enforcement Directorate in the case and proceedings pending in a Delhi trial court.
The ED counsel opposed the petition on the ground of maintainability, saying a special court had taken cognisance of the prosecution complaint (chargesheet) and prima facie found a case.
The cognisance order was not challenged, the counsel added.
Ms. Fernandez is an accused in the money laundering case lodged against Mr. Chandrasekhar and had appeared before the ED for questioning in the investigation.
Delhi Police had booked Mr. Chandrasekhar for allegedly duping the spouses of former promoters of Ranbaxy, Shivinder Singh and Malvinder Singh of ₹200 crore.
There are other ongoing investigations against him in several cases across the country.
Mr. Chandrasekhar and his wife Leena Paulose, facing proceedings in a money laundering case of the ED, were arrested by Delhi Police along with others.
The police invoked the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the case.
Ms. Paulose and Mr. Chandrasekhar were alleged to have used hawala routes and created shell companies along with other accused persons to park the money earned as proceeds of crime.
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'Whether Petitioner knew that what was received were 'proceeds of crime' is yet again an aspect tethered to establishing petitioner's 'knowledge' regarding criminal antecedents of Sukesh and the credibility of assertion that she was completely persuaded and misled by Pinky Irani to ignore it. The nuance that petitioner's counsel is attempting to draw between knowledge of criminality and knowledge that articles were proceeds of crime may not be disjunctive issues sitting in two separate silos,' Justice Anish Dayal observed in the order. 'Attribution of knowledge for the purposes of PMLA implication may potentially bring in its fold the full range, spectrum and degrees of 'knowing'. For example, whether turning a blind eye to an obvious fact or disturbing news or a critical disclosure of illegality, would amount to 'knowing' or not is a matter that, in this Court's opinion, can be determined post-trial, when the Court has all strands of evidence for appreciation,' he further documented. Also read: Conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar pitches $2 bn investment to Elon Musk for X, from jail 'Ignorance' versus push to 'brush things under the carpet' After recording the ECIR, the agency had recorded statements of Jacqueline on at least five occasions between August 2021 and June 2022 regarding gifts she had received from the syndicates of Chandrasekhar. In her petition before the Delhi High Court, the actor claimed ignorance of the alleged extortion syndicate, citing that she was only listed as a prosecution witness in the predicate offence probed by the Delhi Police. A predicate offence is a criminal case registered by law enforcement agencies that form the basis of a money laundering case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act of 2002. Counter to her claims of ignorance of Sukesh's criminal status, the agency countered that she was alerted about the criminal history through a newspaper article from February 2020 by her makeup artist, Shaan Muttathil. It was Muttathil through whom Sukesh established contact with Jacqueline, with the help of his aide, Pinky Irani, in January 2021. However, according to ED, she chose to ignore the 'robust' suspicion that criminality was involved and continued receiving gifts. 'It could very well be that the prosecution is able to establish in its favour that the petitioner ignored the newspaper article completely, or took Pinky Irani's assertions at face value but retained the lurking suspicion that Sukesh was an offender, or that she chose to push these issues under the carpet, knowingly and consciously, in order to continue to receive the benefit of the gifts that she was receiving. All these are evidently a matter of trial,' the court noted. The agency countered that between February 2021, when the actress was first introduced to Sukesh, including through video calls on WhatsApp, and June of the same year, funds were transferred to her sister's and brother's accounts. 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