LAGATAR24 NETWORK
Ranchi, March 21: The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred the hearing of the bail petition of power broker Prem Prakash till April 26. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had arrested him on August 25 last year in connection with its ongoing money laundering probe into an illegal stone mining case in Jharkhand. The anti money federal agency filed a chargesheet against him making him a key accused. The ED claimed that he laundered proceeds of crime generated out of illegal mining.
In January this year, the Jharkhand High Court rejected his bail petition after which Prem Prakash knocked the door of the Supreme Court for bail. His petition was listed for hearing before the bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice M. M. Sundresh. Prem
Prakash alleged that the agency framed him out of malice and there was no evidence of his involvement in the alleged crime. He contended that the ED could not establish any of his connections with Pankaj Mishra for the purpose of illegal mining. Besides he claimed that his transactions with Sanjay Choudhary and Amit Agrawal were part of the business which had nothing to do with the so-called illegal mining and transportation in Sahibganj. He said that the ED without any basis connected him with some companies involved in the illegal mining business. He was not even an accused in the Barharwa toll plaza case lodged in June 2020.
However, the Jharkhand High Court which rejected his bail petition had said that the prosecution story as explained by the ED reminds one of a crime thriller. The court had said that it appeared from the prosecution story that it was a crime thriller, where the State withered and the crime cartels with political connections clashed for natural resources of the State,” the court of Justice Gautam Kumar Choudhary of Jharkhand High Court had said in the order.
The ED charge-sheeted Prem Prakash in the illegal stone mining scam worth Rs 1000 Crore centered in Sahibganj. The investigation of the mining scam originated from the Barharwa toll plaza case which otherwise looked like a simple case of clash to control toll tax auction.
The ED contended that Prem Prakash, Amit Agrawal and Pankaj Mishra were the instruments of the money laundering
