Court allows case against Amar Singh, stays his arrest

LUCKNOW - Restraining the Uttar Pradesh government from arresting Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh, the Allahabad High Court Saturday, however, said the central government could proceed against him in a money laundering case registered against him.

A division bench comprising Justice Yatindra Singh and Justice Srikant Tripathi has fixed Jan 28 for the next hearing of the matter.

“The state government was free to refer the FIR lodged against Amar Singh to a suitable agency of the central government, that could investigate the charges of money laundering against him,” the court held.

Meanwhile, according to an official source, the Enforcement Directorate had, on its own, already taken cognisance of Amar Singh’s case even as state’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) was proceeding against him.

The case lodged by local lawyer Shiv Kant Tripathi in a Kanpur police station charges Amar Singh with using illegal means not only in bringing about merger of a number of companies into six companies owned by him, but also in artificially raising the share prices of these companies.

Tripathi had accused the SP leader of siphoning off a lot of black money in the name of scores of companies in which along with him, his wife Pankaj Kumari Singh and mega star Amitabh Bachchan had cross-holdings.

The state government however chose to forward the case to the Kolkata police on the grounds that all the companies mentioned in the FIR were registered in the West Bengal capital.

The Kolkata police returned the matter to the Uttar Pradesh police, contending the cases could not be registered in Kolkata as the cause of action arose in Uttar Pradesh.