New Delhi, Aug 17 : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday prevented the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from moving forward with the attachment provisional of money of journalist Rana Ayyub under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Notifying the ED, Justice Yashwant Varma requested a response from investigation agency in six weeks.
“Till the date of listing the defendant (ED) is prohibited from taking further actions in accordance with Section 8 (Adjudication) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.The petitioner is also restricted from disposing of or establishing any rights of a third party or encumbering property that is the subject of the interim order of attachment,” said the court order.
Ayyub was a petitioner to the Delhi High Court challenging the attachment of funds by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
In her petition, Ayyub claimed that the temporary attachment had expired after the expiration of 180 days.
However the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) is in full swing with the investigations of the agency investigating the plea said.
The scribe is now facing the PMLA case for allegedly stealing the funds that were collected for charity via the website ketto.com as well as the ED in February seized her assets valued at 1.77 crore.1.77 crore, and claimed that the funds were traced back to the proceeds of criminal activity.
The ED claimed that its investigation discovered that funds were taken in the name of charity in a planned and systematic way, but they were not used for the purpose they were given.
It stated that Ayyub put aside a portion of the money by establishing an account in a bank that was not current and also establishing the fixed deposit of 50 lakh rupees from the money that were raised by Ketto but did not make use of the funds for relief work.
In April the Delhi High Court had permitted the journalist to travel abroad under specific conditions after she was able to approach it to contest the bans imposed by the ED in allowing her to leave the country to give an address at the International Centre for Journalists.
Before that, she was stopped at the Mumbai Airport when she was ready to board a plane for the UK.
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