The Supreme Court today said that it will hear the plea of journalist Rana Ayyub against an order of a Ghaziabad court on January 25.
The Ghaziabad court has summoned the journalist on January 27 in relation to a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case.
The matter was mentioned before the CJI by advocate Vrinda Grover where the CJI said as the summoning order is of January 27. Can you please list this at 2 pm.
CJI then said that they would keep this day after tomorrow before an appropriate bench as today will be difficult.
The matter was decided to be heard earlier by a bench of Justices V Ramasubramanian and JB Pardiwala but the sitting of this bench was cancelled, prompting Grover to mention the case.
The trial court in Ghaziabad has summoned Ayyub in relation to a prosecution complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Special Judge Vatsal Srivastava who was looking in the case in November had held that there was sufficient evidence of a prima facie case for taking cognizance against her.The court had thus summoned the accused.
A money laundering case has been initiated by the ED on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) registered in September 2021 by the Indirapuram Police Station in Ghaziabad under provisions of the Indian Penal Code, Information Technology Amendment Act and Black Money Act against Ayyub.
As per the FIR it was alleged that Rana had illegally acquired funds from the general public in the name of charity by launching fundraiser campaigns on online crowd funding platform Ketto.
It added that the journalist also recieved foreign contributions without registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).
Investigation by ED revealed that Ayyub launched three fundraiser campaigns and collected funds totalling ₹2.69 crore.
These included:
1. Raising funds for farmer and the slum-dwellers.
2. Funds for relief work for Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra;
3. Funds to help those impacted by COVID-19 in India.
As per ED the funds raised were received in her father and sister’s accounts, and were subsequently transferred to her personal accounts. Further, she allegedly utilised these funds to create a fixed deposit of ₹50 lakh for herself and transferred another ₹50 lakh to a new bank account.
The investigation revealed that only 28 lakhs were been used for relief work whereas , a bank balance of ₹1.7 crore was attached by the agency on February 4, 2022.
As per the investigation by ED ,it was revealed that Ms. Rana Ayyub illegally raised Rs. 2.69 Crore by launching three online campaigns in the name of charity by cheating the general public donors. These funds were not used for the intended purpose, instead used for creation of assets for herself.