Delhi court sends Vikas Mishra to judicial custody for 14 days in illegal coal-mining case
Mar 22, 2021
New Delhi [India], March 22 : A Delhi court Monday sent Vikas Mishra, brother of TMC youth leader Vinay Mishra, to judicial custody for 14 days in connection with a coal mining scam.
Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Judge Anurag Sain on Monday sent Vikas Mishra for 14 days after Enforcement Directorate (ED) didn't seek further remand of him. Meanwhile, lawyers representing accused Vikas Mishra moves bail petition which likely to be heard on March 27, 2021.
On the last date of hearing when Court had sent Vikash Mishra on ED remand said, "Custodial interrogation of the accused Vikas Mishra is necessary to unearth the conspiracy, to trace the proceeds of crime and to confront the accused with other witnesses, documents, evidence".
"In these circumstances, accused Vikas Mishra is remanded to six days police custody from today. The ED shall get the medical examination of the accused conducted every 24 hours during the period he remains in their custody. If the medical examination so reveals, the food of the accused shall be as per medical advice. Accused be produced before the concerned court on March 22," Court had said.
Public Prosecutor Advocate NK Matta, who represented ED, had submitted that statements of various witnesses were recorded during investigation and incriminating evidence has been collected against the accused.
Mishra's statement has also been recorded during the course of the investigation on February 25 and March 15. Advocate Matta also stated that the accused has not cooperated with the investigation and has failed to disclose relevant facts in his statements.
He said that custodial interrogation of the accused is essential to further determine the role of various other persons who facilitated the offence of money laundering, to determine the entire modus operandi, to confront the accused with the documents/evidence on record with the witnesses and the evidence gathered till now.
The CBI had registered an FIR in November last year against the alleged kingpin of the case, Anup Manjhi alias Lala, ECL general managers Amit Kumar Dhar and Jayesh Chandra Rai, ECL security chief Tanmay Das, Kunustoria area security inspector Dhananjay Rai, and Kajor area security in-charge Debashish Mukherjee.
The ED had filed a money laundering case based on the FIR. It alleged that Manjhi was involved in illegal mining and theft of coal from the leasehold mines of the Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) in the Kunustoria and Kajora areas.
ED explained in detail in the application that the investigation was taken up to trace the proceeds of crime as it was revealed that "large proceeds of crime" were generated and laundered as a result of illegal coal mining.
