A Delhi court has granted the Enforcement Directorate (ED) nine days’ custody of AAP minister Satyendar Jain who was arrested in a hawala case on Monday.
Delhi chief minister and party leader Arvind Kejriwal threw his weight behind Jain, whom he has retained in the cabinet despite his arrest. Jain holds multiple portfolios including health, home and industries, and is the AAP’s minder for Himachal Pradesh that votes later this year.
The prosecution led by solicitor-general Tushar Mehta asked special CBI judge Geetanjali Goel of the Rouse Avenue Courts for 14 days’ custody for questioning Jain over alleged financial transactions through multiple firms and individuals to unearth the trail of Rs 4.18 crore purportedly used to acquire immovable properties that were attached last month. The probe is being conducted on the basis of an FIR by the CBI on corruption charges against Jain dating back to 2015-16.
Defence lawyer N. Hariharan argued that the ED has merely repeated the allegations in the chargesheet filed by the CBI in 2018. The ED, he contended, has not even been able to find the source of income to explain the CBI’s previous allegations.
Kejriwal spoke out in Jain’s support both before and after the hearing. The chief minister said in a webcast on Tuesday evening: “Had there been even 1 per cent of truth in the case filed against Satyendar Jain, I’d have taken the strictest possible action against him. AAP is a party of honest patriots; we consider corruption to be treason; we can sacrifice our lives but won’t steal even a paisa of taxpayers’ money. The whole country saw how we sacked our own minister in Punjab and sent him to jail.”
He added: “I have studied every aspect of Satyendar Jain’s case in depth. I am an educated man. I have good knowledge of such cases and the laws. I can confidently say that the whole case is a sham and is bogus, being played for political interests…. Such jails can never break his honesty and courage but only add on to it.”
Before entering politics, Kejriwal had been with the Indian Revenue Service. Jain had been an architect who held shares in the companies under the scanner in connection with the case against him.
AAP has avoided large street protests over cases against its MLAs since 2014 when Kejriwal sat on dharna outside Parliament against police action on then law minister Somnath Bharti for leading vigilantes against Africans.
But with Jain, the government’s key performer, behind bars, the AAP is in a fix. A source said Kejriwal’s webcast was an attempt to prevent the loss of the party’s moral high ground, shaken by Jain’s arrest on corruption charges.
The BJP is demanding Kejriwal’s resignation and has held protests in Delhi. Party spokesperson Gautam Bhatia said at a media conference: “Because your (Kejriwal’s) silence reveals that the corruption took place on your directions, the public demands that not only your puppet Satyendar Jain but you also must resign.”
Delhi Congress chief Anil Chaudhary said: “Instead of sacking a corrupt minister like Jain, Kejriwal is trying to defend him, and the one who defends the corrupt is guilty of corruption too…. It is strange that while Arvind Kejriwal justified Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s decision to sack his health minister Vijay Singla for corruption, he is shielding Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain.”
