The Allahabad high court on Friday directed the Enforcement Directorate to investigate charges of money laundering against Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh, saying that the matter needed a thorough probe as it had ‘national ramifications.
A division bench comprising Justices Imtiaz Murtaza and S.S. Tiwari asked the Enforcement Directorate to commence the probe within two weeks.
Meanwhile, putting up a brave face after the high court order against him, Mr Singh on Friday said he should be punished if found guilty as he was not above.
The expelled Samajwadi Party leader claimed he had himself written to the Union finance ministry demanding that allegations against him be probed by the Enforcement Directorate.
“I had also written to the corporate affairs minister saying that I be probed by the corporate affairs ministry,” he told reporters.
The court, which dismissed Mr Singh’s petition, asked the Enforcement Directorate to submit a status report into the case within a month of the commencement of the probe.
Mr Singh had challenged an FIR lodged at the Babupurwa police station in Kanpur on October 15, 2009, by local resident Shiv Kant Tripathi under various sections of the IPC, the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Money Laundering Act, accusing him of various financial irregularities when the Samajwadi Party was in power in Uttar Pradesh.
“Money laundering poses a serious threat to the financial system’s integrity. It may emerge as a parallel economic system within a country controlled by a few. This may destabilise and perish a sound economy,” the judges observed.