New Delhi: Pune-based stud-farm owner Hasan
Ali Khan, accused of money-laundering and stashing away huge
amounts in foreign banks, on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court
challenging a lower court`s order allowing the ED to
interrogate him in its office while being in judicial custody.
An apex court bench, however, refused to entertain Khan`s
plea saying he has not filed any application or petition
before it against the lower court order and it cannot pass
any order on the basis of oral submission.
Advocate Santosh Paul, appearing for Khan, orally brought
matter to the notice of a bench of justices B Sudershan Reddy
and SS Nijjar, that the order passed by the lower court is
illegal and it should be stayed.
A Mumbai sessions court had yesterday allowed the
Enforcement Directorate (ED) to take Khan, now lodged in
Arthur Road jail under judicial custody, to take him to its
office in south Mumbai every day between 10.30 am to 5.30 pm
till April 1 for interrogation.
On March 25, the sessions court had remanded Ali to
judicial custody till April 8. Ali was arrested in the first
week of March.
The apex court had earlier refused to interfere with its
order cancelling the bail granted Khan.
It turned down the plea to reconsider the March 17 order
of the vacation bench which had cited "extraordinary
circumstances" of the case in staying the order of Mumbai
Principal Sessions Judge M L Tahaliyani on March 11 granting
bail to the 53-year-old stud farm owner.
It, however, allowed Khan to move an application seeking
bail before the Special judge in Mumbai which will deal with
it without being influenced by the order and observations of
the apex court.
Khan is also facing a Rs 70,000 crore tax demand
notice from the Income-Tax Department as well as the ED probe.
The ED arrested Khan on March 7 after being pulled up
by the Supreme Court for its failure to ensure his custodial
interrogation. But the trial court had let him off.
PTI
