India News | Court Extends Custody of Man Accused of Cheating by Portraying Himself to Be Close to Politicians

New Delhi, Jun 9 (PTI) A court here on Friday extended by four days the custodial interrogation of a man arrested in a money-laundering case related to allegedly cheating people crores of rupees by portraying himself to be close to politicians, ministers as well as the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

Special Judge Shailender Malik sent accused Sanjay Prakash Rai to further custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) till June 13.

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"Having considered the submissions at bar and having gone through the averments of remand papers, as noted above, the accused was given earlier for seven days' police custody with ED. Taking into consideration the steps taken during this period of police custody and the grounds for which police remand is sought, without commenting much on the merits of the matter as the investigation is at initial stages, four days' more police remand of the accused is given with the ED," the judge said.

The court passed the order on an application moved by the federal agency seeking further custody of Rai for seven days.

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Rai had allegedly portrayed himself to be close to top politicians and ministers at the Centre as well as the PMO and received Rs 6 crore in a bank account as donation from the Dalmia Family Office Trust.

The ED told the court that the investigation was open-ended and the accused was required to be confronted with documents and other evidence in the case.

Special Public Prosecutor N K Matta, appearing for the ED along with advocate Faizan Khan, further submitted that there was also evidence that an amount of Rs 7 crore has been recovered. This amount was allegedly received by the accused from unknown sources and deposited in different accounts with a design to launder it.

The ED had filed the case on the basis of an FIR lodged in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) arrested Rai from Lucknow on Wednesday in connection with a case of forgery, wherein he and his aides allegedly collected money worth crores from several sources, individuals as well as organisations, by forging documents with a false reference to the PMO.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)