Delhi court extends custody of Sukesh Chandrashekhar's associates in MCOCA case

Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh extended the police remand of Pradeep Ramdanee and Deepak Ramnani, arrested on August 7 and 8 respectively in the case. 

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police recently arrested several people along with Chandrashekhar and his partner and actress Leena Maria Paul for allegedly duping Aditi Singh, wife of the former promoter of Ranbaxy, Shivinder Singh, of Rs 200 crore. 

"I find that due to the voluminous nature of the evidence that has been recovered, its scrutiny is going to take time and both the accused also need to be confronted with the said evidence, which is also going to take time," the judge said. 

He further noted that there were allegations of huge transactions through hawala as well as shell companies and those shell companies were registered at bogus addresses. 

The court said that the custody of the accused persons will be required to trace those companies and to find the money trail which had spread out of Delhi and out of India. 

The prosecution had earlier claimed that Chandrashekhar and Paul, along with their associates, used hawala routes and created shell companies to park the money earned from proceeds of crime. 

Chandrashekhar, an alleged conman, is accused in many cases, including the Election Commission bribery case etc. 

Delhi Police's EOW registered two FIR against Chandrasekhar and others for allegedly duping the spouses of former promoters of Ranbaxy, Shivinder Singh, and Malvinder Singh, of Rs 200 crore besides ongoing investigations against him in several cases across the country. 

An FIR was registered on August 7 after Aditi Singh informed police that a man posing as a senior official of the Law Ministry offered to help her secure bail for her husband, who was in jail at that time, in return for money. 

Shivinder Singh was arrested in a money laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL) in 2019. 

According to the police, Chandrasekhar, an accused in 21 cases, including the Election Commission bribery case, had made the call to Aditi Singh and he was arrested in August. 

At the time of the incident, Chandrasekhar was lodged in Delhi's Rohini jail and was running an extortion racket from behind the bars, it said. 

The police had also arrested his two associates who operated for him from outside the prison along with two senior officials of Rohini jail for aiding Chandrasekhar. 

During the course of investigation, the police had found that a manager of a bank in Connaught Place and his two associates were involved in the dubious transactions for circulation of funds and arrangement of cash and the three were subsequently arrested, police said. 

Police said Chandrasekhar's associates revealed that they were helped by Rohini jail officials. 

"An assistant jail superintendent and the deputy superintendent of Rohini Jail were found involved in the racket and they have admitted to have helped the accused. The two jail officials were also arrested," the police had said.