Court seeks ED’s response on ex-CM Virbhadra’s plea

New Delhi, September 21

A special court has granted two weeks to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to respond to a plea of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, seeking certain documents in a money laundering case against him.

Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj directed the probe agency to file by October 5 its reply to the applications moved by Virbhadra and other accused, including his wife Pratibha Singh and LIC agent Anand Chauhan. Special public prosecutors NK Matta and Nitesh Rana, appearing for the ED, had sought six weeks from the court for filing the response. However, the court said “the period of six weeks will be too long a date” and allowed two weeks.

During the proceedings, the copies of the applications moved by the accused were received by advocate Samvedna Verma on behalf of the ED.

In their applications, moved through senior advocate Rebecca John and advocate Tarannum Cheema, the accused told the court that they had not received several documents filed with the chargesheet, while many papers supplied to them were not readable.

Besides 83-year-old Virbhadra and his 62-year-old wife, the others named as accused in the ED chargesheet, filed through advocate AR Aditya, include politician’s son Vikramaditya, Universal Apple Associate owner Chunni Lal Chauhan, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) agent Anand Chauhan and two other co-accused — Prem Raj and Lawan Kumar Roach.

The case also involves managing director of Tarani Infrastructure, Vakamulla Chandrasekhar and one Ram Prakash Bhatia as accused.

In a separate case filed by the CBI in relation to the matter, the former CM, his wife and Chauhan were chargesheeted along with others. The CBI had claimed that Virbhadra had amassed assets worth Rs 10 crore during his tenure as a Union Minister under the UPA government. — PTI