Action likely against Moin Qureshi, former officials in money laundering case

Trouble is likely to mount for controversial businessman Moin Akhtar Qureshi and a slew of former government officials and politicians whose conversations with Qureshi were made a part of the complaint by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) through a letter sent by former ED director Karnal Singh in August 2016.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

It was regarding Qureshi acting as middleman for public servants. This was then taken up by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The case had since gone cold.

Qureshi was last heard of and seen in public when he attended the third wedding of lawyer Harish Salve in London last year in September.

Apart from Qureshi, the other individuals named in the complaint by the ED were Aditya Sharma, an employee of Qureshi, Pradeep Koneru and Sandeep Koneru, owners of the Hyderabad-based Trimex group of companies, and former CBI director Amar Pratap Singh.

However, with a bench of Delhi High Court on 19 July upholding the constitutional validity of Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, which allows authorities to summon and record statements during an investigation, both the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI can now go after the accused in the case unless they are stopped from doing so.

The court found that the petitioners, Satish Babu Sana, another individual who was found to be involved in this racket, and Pradeep Koneru, were involved in money laundering by making illicit payments to Moin Akhtar Qureshi, and the proceedings under PMLA against them were rightly initiated. The court held that the petitioners’ status as witnesses in the initial complaint could be changed to accused during the course of the investigation if new facts emerged, as per the Supreme Court’s decision, and dismissed their petitions.

Babu, a Hyderabad-based businessman whose case in 2018 became a focal point of contention between the CBI’s top officers, Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in August 2019. He was implicated in a money laundering case connected to Qureshi.