The Supreme Court on Tuesday mulled invoking terrorism and other stringent penal charges against Pune stud farm owner Hasan Ali Khan, accused of massive money laundering and tax evasion, for his alleged links with arms dealers and people linked to terrorist activities.
A bench of B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar also asked the Union government to examine if the case registered against him for possessing fake passports could be probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The bench contemplated invoking terror charges under — Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 — and other stringent provisions of the Indian Penal Code owing to Khan's alleged links.
The bench expressed displeasure that the probe against Khan in the fake passport case had not proceeded in the right direction with right speed, “as nothing is moving despite the magnitude of the issue”.
The court made the observations and issued directions while hearing a public interest filed by eminent jurist Ram Jethmalani, seeking repatriation of a huge corpus of black money stashed in banks abroad by unscrupulous citizens.
Khan was arrested last night by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which carried out searches at his Pune home and that of his associates’ premises in several cities, cracking the whip to meet Tuesday's Supreme Court deadline.
Ali, 53, who was detained in Pune, was brought to Mumbai later and grilled by the ED for nearly six hours before being put under arrest.
The apex court also asked the government to furnish details of four officials earlier probing the case against Khan, who were abruptly transferred midway into the investigation.
The government responded by saying the officials were on deputation with the ED and were sent back. Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium, however, assured the court he would take up the matter with the government and see that the officials are retained.
The government also admitted that the court was justified in seeking Khan’s custodial interrogation as the charges against him warranted such questioning.
“It is a case in which a case is made out for custodial interrogation,” Subramanium said. The solicitor general also admitted that one of the investigating officers, who was a deputy commissioner of police, was earlier harassed apparently by his superiors as he had the courage to take on Khan in the fake passport case.
Meanwhile, senior counsel Anil Divan, appearing for petitioner Jethmalani, expressed serious apprehension about Khan’s life, as he allegedly had enough material to expose the powers-that-be behind his various murky deals.
The counsel recalled that Ashutosh Asthana, a key accused in the Ghaziabad provident fund scam, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Dasna Jail of the district during the CBI probe into the case. Meanwhile, the ED submitted to the court in a sealed cover its status report on the probe.
