After Satyendar Jain's arrest in a money laundering case, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday informed reliable sources have suggested that the central government is now planning to arrest Deputy CM Manish Sisodia soon.
Kejriwal also said that the central government has ordered all the agencies to form fake cases against Sisodia.
"I'd already announced a few months back that the Central government is going to arrest Satyendar Jain in a fake case. Reliable sources have suggested to me that Manish Sisodia is going to be arrested soon, centre has ordered all agencies to form fake cases against him," Kejriwal told media persons at a press conference.
Hitting out at the Centre over recent raids, he urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to conduct raids and put all the ministers and MLAs from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) behind bars at one time only.
"I request PM Modi to put all the ministers and MLAs from AAP behind the bars and ask all the central agencies to do all investigations at a go. Do as many raids as you want. You arrest one minister at a time, it obstructs public works," he added.
"Some people say this is because of the upcoming Himachal Pradesh elections, some say this is revenge for the Punjab elections. Whatever the reason is, we are not afraid to get arrested. Several raids were done on AAP leaders five years ago but nothing was recovered," Kejriwal further said.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in an alleged money laundering case and sent to custody till June 9.
The Delhi Chief Minister has backed Jain since day one of the arrests. On Tuesday, Kejriwal said that he has personally read the case, and the allegations against Jain are 'false'. He even called "Jain" a patriot and asserted that he should be given a Padma Vibhushan.
Soon after the arrest, Sisodia also claimed that the latter's arrest had been made in a "fake" case as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is afraid of losing Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls that are scheduled to be held this year.
The CBI had registered a DA case against Satyendar Jain on August 24, 2017, and filed a charge sheet against him on December 3, 2018.
Jain had reportedly floated or bought several shell companies in Delhi. He also allegedly laundered black money worth Rs 16.39 crore through 54 shell companies of three hawala operators of Kolkata. Jain allegedly owned a large number of shares in companies named Prayas, Indo, and Akinchan.
However, after becoming Minister in Kejriwal's government, all his shares were transferred to his wife in 2015, as per reports.
These companies used to transfer cash payments to their Kolkata counterparts and these companies would later, under the ruse of buying shares, "route back the money" to Jain by employing legal means. The companies have reportedly laundered money to the tune of Rs 16.39 crores from 2010 to 2014 to Satyendar Jain.
As per government sources, when prosecuted by the I-T Department, Jain surrendered black money in form of cash of Rs 16.39 crore under Income Disclosure Scheme (IDS) 2016 on benami names of Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain.
( With inputs from ANI )
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