JKCA case: ED issues attachment order under PMLA to seize properties worth Rs 7.25 crore

New Delhi, March 3

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said it has issued a provisional attachment order under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to seize properties worth Rs 7.25 crore of Ahsan Ahmad Mirza as part of its ongoing investigation into financial irregularities committed by officer-bearers of the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA).

This was the third attachment order issued by the ED in this case, as property of NC leader and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah was provisionally attached in December 2020 and this was challenged in the J&K High Court.

Abdullah was JKCA president from 2001 to 2012 and the scam being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the ED is about alleged financial misappropriation between 2004 and 2009.

In an official statement the ED said, in this case, properties worth Rs 14.32 crore have already been attached previously — Rs 2.46 crore of movable and immovable assets of Mirza and Mir Manzoor Ghazanfar, and Rs 11.86 crore of immovable assets of Abdullah.

Notwithstanding the challenge to the order by Abdullah, the adjudicating authority confirmed the provisional attachment of the earlier two orders. “The adjudicating authority has already confirmed the provisional attachment orders,” the statement read.

The ED in the statement claimed that its probe has so far “revealed that Ahsan Ahmad Mirza in connivance with other office bearers of the JKCA had misappropriated the cricket body’s funds to the tune of Rs 51.90 crore and utilised proceeds of crime for settling his personal and business liabilities”.

It initiated the money laundering probe against the JKCA office bearers on the basis of a case registered at the Rammunshi Bagh Police Station in Srinagar. But the case was later handed over to the CBI by the J&K High Court.

The CBI has filed a charge sheet in the case against the former JKCA office bearers for misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 43.69 crore.

A prosecution complaint was also filed by the ED on November 1, 2019, against Mirza in a special PMLA court in Srinagar after placing him under arrest. The trial is in progress, the statement added.