Demonetisation fraud: Court to consider charge sheet on Feb 25

A Delhi court today said it will consider on February 25 the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) charge sheet filed against two private bank officials and another person in a case of alleged irregularities related to the conversion of old currency and supply of new notes.

The matter came up before Additional Sessions Judge Prashant Kumar, who took charge of the court today, and listed it for the next date for consideration on the issue of taking cognisance of the charge sheet filed through Special Public Prosecutor Vikas Garg, who appeared for ED.

This is the first charge sheet, called prosecution complaint by the probe agency, in money laundering cases resulting from demonetisation against officials of an Axis bank branch here and others.
 

Meanwhile, the court extended till February 25 the judicial custody of 32-year-old Vinnet Gupta, suspended branch manager in Axis Bank's Kashmere Gate branch here, 33-year-old Shobit Sinha, suspended manager (operations) in the bank, and Rajeev Kumar Kushwaha, suspected to be the mastermind behind floating of shell companies.

ED has filed a charge sheet in the case, running into over 750 pages, detailing the alleged roles of the three arrested accused. It has also cited 22 witnesses and said the investigation in the case is still going on and it will file a supplementary charge sheet later on.

According to sources, ED said in its charge sheet that the probe has found that Gupta, Sinha and Kushwaha have allegedly generated properties out of the proceeds of crime and sought the court's direction to confiscate those assets.

The probe agency has also given money trail details along with CCTV footage of the bank, call detail records of several persons and other documentary evidences with its report.

Gupta and Sinha were arrested by ED on December 4, 2016 and later on suspended by the bank. Subsequently, Kushwaha was also apprehended.

ED had earlier allegedly before the court that the two bank officials, in connivance with others, had indulged in illegally changing demonetised currency into new notes.