New Delhi, Setting the stage for trial, a Delhi court on Wednesday formally framed charges against actor Jacqueline Fernandez, alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekar and 15 others in a Rs 200-crore money laundering case.
In a separate case registered by the Delhi Police’s Special Cell, the court also framed charges against Chandrashekar and 20 others for various offences, including under the stringent MCOCA provisions.
Chandrashekar, Jacqueline, and several others appeared in person in the court on Wednesday afternoon.
Pleading not guilty to the charges, the accused persons claimed trial before Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Prashant Sharma.
On May 30, in two separate orders, the court had ordered framing charges in the two cases, saying prima facie, there is sufficient material against the accused.
In the ED case, ASJ Sharma had said that the accused persons “have to be charged with the offence (of money laundering) under Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), punishable under Section 4 of the PMLA.
In the case registered by the special cell and later probed by the economic offences wing, the judge had ordered framing of charges against Chandrashekar for personating a public servant, extortion, cheating, criminal intimidation, criminal conspiracy, along with IT Act provisions and MCOCA sections for committing an organised crime and possessing unaccountable wealth on behalf of members of an organised crime syndicate.
He had also ordered framing of similar charges, except for the offence of impersonating a public servant, against Chandrashekar’s wife, Leena Paulose.
The judge had said that charges be framed against 17 others for various penal offences, and under the IT Act and MCOCA provisions for committing organised crime.
MCOCA, or the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999, is a law enacted to combat organised crime syndicates and terrorism. The Act equips authorities with special powers to track, intercept, and penalise gang-related criminal activities that normal penal codes fail to deter.
Three others were also ordered to be charged with offences of criminal conspiracy and cheating.
Jacqueline, whom the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned several times in connection with the probe, was named as an accused for the first time in a supplementary chargesheet filed by the agency.
The ED alleged in its second supplementary complaint against Jacqueline that she was in constant touch with Chandrashekar and had received valuable gifts from him through Pinky Irani.
According to the prosecution, Chandrashekar was running an organised criminal network from inside jail and was impersonating senior government officials, including those from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Ministry of Law and Justice.
It claimed that by using spoofed calls, encrypted applications and fabricated identities, the accused induced complainant Aditi Singh and her family members to part with huge sums of money.
The ED alleged that Chandrashekar generated proceeds of crime amounting to more than Rs 200 crore through extortion, cheating, impersonation and criminal intimidation, and thereafter concealed, possessed, transferred, layered and projected the same as untainted property with the help of his associates.
The Delhi Police’s case was registered based on a complaint by Aditi Singh, claiming that on June 15, 2020, she received a call from a landline number on her mobile phone in which the caller introduced himself as a senior official in the Union law ministry and proposed to help her resolve legal matters related to her husband and her companies.
The police alleged that thereafter, the caller, through his associates, hatched a conspiracy by impersonating high-ranking government officials and extorted money to the tune of around Rs 217 crore on multiple occasions.
It claimed that after a technical surveillance of the cellphone used by the caller, the extortionist was identified as Chandrashekar, who was already lodged in the Rohini jail in a case of taking money from AIADMK leader T T V Dinakaran on the pretext of helping him retain the ‘two leaves’ symbol for his party.
Chandrashekar was arrested by the Delhi Police in 2017.
