SC issues notice to ED on Hasan Ali bail plea

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear the bail plea of Pune-based stud farm owner Hasan Ali Khan, who has been in jail since 2011 in a money laundering case, and issued a notice to Enforcement Directorate.

A bench of justices V Gopala Gowda and A K Goel sought a response from the agency on the plea of the 60-year-old businessman seeking bail on health ground. Khan came under the scrutiny from multiple agencies under the Department of Revenue (DoR) and the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai police in 2007 which had been probing him and his associates for charges of money laundering, income tax evasion and violations of the Passport Act. He was slapped with an Income Tax notice demanding taxes over Rs 50,000 crore and it was claimed to be the biggest individual case of black money stashed abroad and also that of the highest tax evasion by an individual in the country. While the I-T department raised a tax arrear demand of Rs 50,345.73 crore on Khan, ED registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for allegedly stashing away USD eight billion of unaccounted money in foreign banks. It is also probing him for alleged forex violations. A trial in this case, for money laundering offences, is pending in a Mumbai court since 2011.