Misa Bharti, husband granted bail in money laundering case

NEW DELHI: A special Delhi court today granted bail to Lalu Prasad’s daughter Misa Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar in a money laundering case+ filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The Special CBI court granted bail to the couple on the condition that they cannot leave the country without prior permission from the court.

The court had ordered the couple to be in court today based on a chargesheet filed by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The ED’s case is related to the purchase of a Delhi farm house by Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar, under the name of their company Ms Mishail Packers and Printers. The ED says this purchase was made with Rs 1.2 crore in money laundered through shell companies in 2008-2009.

The ED is investigating the purchase of the farmhouse as part of a larger probe in a Rs 8,000 crore money laundering case involving various shell companies.

When questioned about the purchase of the farm house by her company, Bharti told the ED+ she had nothing to do with running the company, Mishail Packers. It was run by her husband and one Sandeep Sharma, a chartered accountant who has since passed away, she said.

Meanwhile, Bharti’s husband Kumar told the ED he did indeed supervise the day-to-day functioning of the company but did not oversee what he called “financial matters”. Those were handled by the chartered accountant Sharma, he said.

The ED contends that Bharti and Kumar were directors of the firm and were therefore “responsible for the conduct of the business of their company."

Also accused in the case are two Delhi brothers Surendra and Virendra Jain and one Rajesh Kumar Agarwal, who’s an accountant by profession.

The ED said Bharti, Kumar, the Jain brothers and Agrawal were the "key persons behind the money laundering of Rs 1.20 crore".