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Black money hoarder Hasan Ali gets bail
MUMBAI - In a major embarrassment for the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Mumbai sessions court on Friday granted conditional bail to Hasan Ali Khan, a Pune stud farmer owner, accused of being a tax evader and alleged to have stashed funds abroad.
The ED has over the past few days been hauled over the coals by M.L.Tahilyani, the principal judge of the session’s court, for its shoddy investigations in the case. The ED, a law enforcement and economic intelligence agency – and part of the Ministry of Finance – had to change its prosecutor after being criticised by the court.
On Friday, the judge directed Khan to deposit Rs80,000 as bail amount and to stay in Mumbai for the next five days and also be available for questioning by the ED over the next two days.
According to the ED, Khan was arrested as he had not cooperated with the agency in its probe into his alleged violations of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, despite being summoned almost 30 times to its office. Khan was brought to Mumbai from his Pune home by the ED on Monday night, especially after the Supreme Court criticised the government for not having the will to act against black money hoarders.
He was interrogated and then arrested by the agency. It claimed that it had been probing his violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) since 2006. Khan, who has interests in real estate and the scrap business, is accused of having stashed about $8 billion in Swiss banks and has been asked to pay a penalty of a whopping Rs700 billion (about Dh56 billion) for tax evasion.
The ED argued that it has recovered incriminating documents during raids on his homes, indicating that international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi had transferred $300 million to Khan’s Swiss bank accounts; the money was allegedly meant for funding terror networks. It also submitted a notarised document establishing a link between Khashoggi and Khan. The latter, however, denied that the signature on the document was his. He also claims to be innocent and denies having kept money abroad in foreign banks. The Swiss bank, where he is alleged to have kept about $8 billion, has also denied that it has any relationship with Khan.
About two years ago, Mumbai police had arrested Khan in a fake passport case. He is accused of having obtained multiple passports using forged documents. He was later released on bail. Khan’s lawyer told the session’s court that the ED had not sought his arrest even in 2009.
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