MUMBAI, March 11 � The Enforcement Directorate faced a big embarassment today when a local court rejected its plea seeking Hasan Ali Khan�s remand for custodial interrogation and granted him bail after observing contents of some of its �confidential� documents were �available in Wikipedia�, reports PTI.
Principal Sessions Court Judge ML Tahaliyani, while rejecting the agency�s remand application for 14-day custodial interrogation of the controversial 53-year-old businessman and Pune-based stud farm owner, observed it had failed to back its charges in a money laundering case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
�No material evidence has been presented by the ED that shows any scheduled offence has been committed by Khan,� Tahaliyani observed, ordering that the man alleged to have stashed billions abroad be enlarged on conditional bail.
The ED, which arrested Khan on Monday midnight after being pulled up by the Supreme Court for its failure to ensure his custodial interrogation, was left red faced as the Judge said, �Despite its arguments, the ED has not been able to demonstrate that a scheduled offence has been committed in the first place.�
The ED said it will challenge the order and move a superior court.
About the �confidential� documents submitted by the agency in a sealed cover while seeking Khan�s remand, the Judge said, �It was noticed by me that contents of some of the documents were available in Wikipedia�.
�It appears (from the documents) that two accounts of Khan were never operational and not funded as the bank was not satisfied with credentials of the accused and (those) two accounts were never made operational,� the Judge said.
The court ordered Khan�s release after rejecting the ED�s prayer for a stay on execution of the bail to enable them to contest the judgement in a superior court as they apprehended he would abscond.
Tahaliyani then barred Khan from leaving the city for the next five days during which he would have to report to ED office every day.
The court also rejected the argument that USD 700,000 was transferred from Khan�s Sarasin Bank account in Switzerland to the account of SK Financial Services based in United Kingdom maintained by Barclays Bank London through Citi Bank New York and accepted defence lawyer IP Bagadia� s contention that the account holder was one HA Kahn and not Khan (Hasan Ali Khan).
On the charge that Khan had hoarded USD 8 billion in UBS, Switzerland, something which the bank has denied, the court said there was no material to show that money was transferred to UBS and that tainted money was shown as untainted.
