Two days after the Enforcement Department (ED) quizzed former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti in reference to a money-laundering case, the regulation enforcement company shifted its give attention to the 2 hand-written diaries that have been recovered from Mufti’s aide throughout searches carried out final 12 months.
The Sunday Express reported that the diaries have been maintained by her aide and have been recovered from his Srinagar residence throughout searches carried out on December 23, 2020.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief was reportedly proven the pages from one of many diaries that lists “alleged monthly payments made out of the CM’s discretionary funds to several individuals including her relatives; as payment for party activities and to meet ‘personal’expenses”.
After her questioning was over, Mufti had stated: “Dissent has been criminalised in the country. One who speaks against you [the Centre] is being either booked under sedition charges or being summoned by the investigative agencies.”
She additionally alleged that anybody opposing the present authorities was “hounded by trumped up charges” like sedition or cash laundering. “Dissent has been criminalised in this country. The ED, Central Bureau of Investigation and the National Investigation Agency are being misused to silence the opposition tactically,” Mufti stated after rising from the ED workplace at Rajbagh right here.
“This country is not being run by the Constitution but the agenda of a particular political party,” she alleged. Asked concerning the questions put forth to her by the ED, the PDP chief stated she was requested concerning the sale of her ancestral land in Bijbehara space of Anantnag district and using the chief minister’s discretionary funds.
“Questions were asked regarding the sale of our ancestral land in Bijbehara and use of the chief minister’s discretionary fund. I was asked from where would come the list of widows who were receiving help from the CM’s secret funds,” Mufti stated, including that she had nothing to concern as her fingers have been clear. The former chief minister stated her get together will proceed to pursue the agenda for decision of Jammu and Kashmir’s downside and restoration of its particular standing because it existed earlier than August 5, 2019.
Later, the PDP president took to Twitter claiming that she had reluctantly signed the assertion made earlier than the ED. (*2*) she tweeted.
“Finally despite my reluctance, I was forced to sign a statement which is evident from the CCTV footage of my questioning,” Mufti added. The Peoples Democratic Party president didn’t seem earlier than the company in Delhi on Monday, citing that she had prior commitments which couldn’t be cancelled.
Mufti requested the ED officers to query her in Srinagar and never in Delhi, and her request was accepted. The 61-year-old chief, who was launched final 12 months after greater than a 12 months in detention following the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir’s particular standing, was served a discover to seem on the ED headquarters in the nationwide capital.
On March 19, the Delhi High Court had refused to keep summons issued to her after she moved the court docket looking for quashing of the summons in the case. The ED, which had earlier summoned Mufti on March 15, had not insisted on her private look at the moment.
“I write to you in reference to the summons issued to me to be present at your Delhi office on March 22. I have challenged in the Delhi High Court the constitutional vires of Section 50 of the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act), under which these summons are issued,” she stated in a letter to the ED. Section 50 of the PMLA empowers the authority, that’s, officers of the ED, to summon any individual to give proof or produce data. Persons summoned are sure to reply the questions put to them and to produce paperwork as required by the ED officers, failing which they are often penalised underneath the PMLA.
The PDP chief had stated that with out prejudice to any of the contentions in the proceedings earlier than the excessive court docket, “I state that I am not in a position to attend the summon on March 22 as I have prior commitments that cannot be cancelled at such a short notice”. “If, however, you insist we must do it sooner, I am ready and willing to be questioned in Srinagar, preferably at my residence or through video conference from Srinagar,” Mufti had stated in her letter.
