SC dismisses Rana Ayyub's plea challenging summons by Ghaziabad court in money laundering case

Ayyub's lawyer argued that no part of the crime was committed in Uttar Pradesh.

New Delhi, Feb 07: Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the plea of journalist Rana Ayyub challenging the summons issued to her by a special PMLA court in Ghaziabad in a money laundering case lodged against her by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

"We have said under section 3 PMLA, the place where any of the six activities are carried out.. is the place where offence of money laundering takes place. The question as to which is the place is a question of fact decided on evidence. We leave it open to raise this issue before trial court. We are dismissing this petition," Bar & Bench quoted a division bench of Justices V Ramasubramanian and JB Pardiwala as saying.

The journalist's advocate Vrinda Grover had earlier argued that the UP court had 'absolutely no jurisdiction' as the the alleged offence was not committed in the state and said to have been committed in Mumbai. "The petitioner has never been arrested. Now, she is being dragged to a state where her safety would be most in jeopardy. Can her personal liberty be deprived in a procedure not authorised by law?" Live Law quoted the senior counsel as asking.

Last week, the Supreme Court reserved its order in a plea challenging the summons issued by a special court in Ghaziabad in the money laundering case.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the ED, said the prosecution complaint has been filed in the Ghaziabad court by the agency as part of the cause of action had arisen in Uttar Pradesh, where a lot of people, including from Ghaziabad, contributed to her crowdfunding campaign, PTI reported.

In her writ petition, Ayyub has sought quashing of the proceedings initiated by the ED in Ghaziabad citing lack of jurisdiction as the alleged offence of money laundering occurred in Mumbai.

On November 29 last year, the special PMLA court in Ghaziabad took cognisance of the prosecution complaint (charge sheet) filed by the ED and summoned Ayyub. The ED charge sheet was filed under section 45 read with section 44 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. "I have perused the above mentioned prosecution complaint and have also gone through the prosecution papers as well as documents, including statements.

"From the perusal of the entire record, there is sufficient evidence as to a prima facie case for taking cognisance against Ms Rana Ayyub with regard to commission of offence," the special court judge had said.

On October 12 last year, the ED had filed a charge sheet against Ayyub, accusing her of cheating the public and using Rs 2.69 crore she got in charity for creating personal assets, and also violating the foreign contribution law.

"Rana Ayyub launched three fundraiser charity campaigns on the 'Ketto' platform, starting from April 2020 and collected funds totalling Rs 2,69,44,680," the ED had said in a statement.

The campaigns, it had claimed, were meant to raise funds for slum dwellers and farmers, relief work for Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra, and help Ayyub and her team help those impacted by coronavirus in India.

"Ayyub utilised these funds to create a fixed deposit of Rs 50 lakh for herself and also transferred Rs 50 lakh to a new bank account. Investigations found that only about Rs 29 lakh was used for relief work," the ED had claimed.

With inputs from PTI