Farooq Abdullah’s petition challenging ED to come up for hearing in JK High court on Monday

A petition of veteran politician Farooq Abdullah challenging an order of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of attaching his properties in the erstwhile state will come up for hearing on Monday earlier than a brand new choose of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

The plea, which has given an in depth purpose for cancelling the supply attachment order of the ED, got here up for hearing on March 5 earlier than Justice Ali Mohammed Magrey who ordered for placing it earlier than a bench on Monday.

“During the course of hearing submissions of realized counsel for the petitioner, I bethought that earlier in some issues arising out of considerably similar primary allegations, I’ve declined to hear the case.

“….the judicial propriety demands the case be listed before some other Bench, on 08.03.2021,” Justice Magrey mentioned in a single web page order on March 5.

The petition, which has over 50 paperwork annexed together with it, has highlighted each side of Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association rip-off and knowledgeable the court that it was on the occasion of Abdullah that an in-house committee of affiliation was shaped which discovered two workplace bearers responsible of economic misappropriation and a case was registered in the native police station.

The petition of Abdullah contended that the ED had nowhere carried out an impartial inquiry into the case “rendering it inherently biased. Nowhere has the ED satisfactorily offered reasons to believe that the petitioner is in possession of proceeds of crime, or that such proceeds are likely to be concealed”.

Abdullah was president of JKCA from 2001 to 2012 and the rip-off being probed by the CBI and the ED is about alleged misappropriation between 2004 to 2009.

Challenging the provisional attachment order of the ED, it contended that the industrial property hooked up by the central probe company at Srinagar was proven even in data of involved Estate division as undivided property held by the whole household of the petitioner (Abdullah). The lease was renewed in 1981.

“Similarly, leasehold rights over the land of Estate Sonwar (residential house of Abdullah) was renewed on 26.08-1986. This is reflected in the lease renewal deed dated 17.10.1988 issued by the Revenue department, government of Jammu and Kashmir, proving that this land can in no way be linked to the offences in the present case (of ED),” it mentioned.

The land at Ganderbal district, conventional bastion of the National Conference, and the one at Tangmarg, hooked up by the ED, the petitioner contended that the items of land had been inherited from his mom Begum Akbar Jehan and subsequently knowledgeable to the ED.

In respect to the land and home at Jammu, Abdullah contended that it was bought from three folks and the identical was mutated in 1998, a reality mirrored to the ED by Tehsildar of the involved space.

The former chief minister of undivided Jammu and Kashmir contended that he had taken a mortgage of Rs 10 lakh from Jammu and Kashmir financial institution for development of home and the identical was knowledgeable to the ED by the petitioner.

“Evidently, neither of these properties were even acquired in the same time period as the date of the alleged offences, let alone being properties being involved in money laundering,” the petition mentioned.

The petition mentioned that the ED had “deliberately” undervalued his properties in order to connect most of it, a transfer which clearly demonstrates “their mala fide”.

On December 18, 2020, the ED issued a provisional order attaching the properties beneath the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to Abdullah. An enchantment might be filed earlier than the adjudicating authority of the PMLA inside a six-month interval.

According to an ED assertion, the hooked up properties embody three residential homes and a industrial constructing at posh Residency Road in Srinagar, moreover lands at 4 totally different locations in Jammu and Kashmir.

While the e-book worth of the hooked up properties is Rs 11.86 crore, their market worth is estimated to be about Rs 60-70 crore, ED officers had mentioned.

The ED registered the case on December 28, 2018, beneath the Ranbir Penal Code (the Indian Penal Code’s substitute in the erstwhile state) with out ascertaining whether or not it had any jurisdiction to achieve this, NC MP Husnain Masoodi mentioned.

The ED has alleged that Abdullah “misused” his place as president of the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) from 2001-2011 and made appointments in the sports activities physique in order that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) sponsored funds might be laundered.

Abdullah has raised the validity of the ED in the case. He mentioned in his petition that on the date of the registration of the ECIR (Enforcement Commission Information Report) and the initiation of investigation, the state of Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, 1956, and had particular standing beneath Article 370 of the Constitution of India.

The 84-year-old NC patron has been questioned by the ED in the case a number of occasions, the final in October 2020 at Srinagar.