Trouble is likely to mount for controversial businessman Moin Akhtar Qureshi and a slew of former government officials and politicians whose conversations with Qureshi were made a part of the complaint by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) through a letter sent by former ED director Karnal Singh in August 2016. It was regarding Qureshi acting as middleman for public servants. This was then taken up by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The case had since gone cold. Qureshi was last heard of and seen in public when he attended the third wedding of lawyer Harish Salve in London last year in September.
Apart from Qureshi, the other individuals named in the complaint by the ED were Aditya Sharma, an employee of Qureshi, Pradeep Koneru and Sandeep Koneru, owners of the Hyderabad-based Trimex group of companies, and former CBI director Amar Pratap Singh.
However, with a bench of Delhi High Court on 19 July upholding the constitutional validity of Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, which allows authorities to summon and record statements during an investigation, both the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI can now go after the accused in the case unless they are stopped from doing so.
The court found that the petitioners, Satish Babu Sana, another individual who was found to be involved in this racket, and Pradeep Koneru, were involved in money laundering by making illicit payments to Moin Akhtar Qureshi, and the proceedings under PMLA against them were rightly initiated. The court held that the petitioners’ status as witnesses in the initial complaint could be changed to accused during the course of the investigation if new facts emerged, as per the Supreme Court’s decision, and dismissed their petitions.
Babu, a Hyderabad-based businessman whose case in 2018 became a focal point of contention between the CBI’s top officers, Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in August 2019. He was implicated in a money laundering case connected to Qureshi.
At the time, Rakesh Asthana, who oversaw the CBI’s special team investigating multiple complaints against Moin Qureshi, advocated for the arrest and interrogation of Babu and the others involved. Asthana’s team believed Babu played a significant role in the cases against Qureshi and alleged he had bribed several agency officials, including those within the CBI.
In response, Sana filed a corruption complaint against Asthana. In the FIR registered by the CBI in October 2018, Sana had alleged that he had paid a Rs 2 crore bribe to Asthana to be spared any action in the investigation linked to Qureshi. The money, he alleged, was paid over a 10-month period, starting from December 2017. Asthana had denied such reports as malicious and fictional.
However, not known to Sana was the fact that Asthana had already complained to cabinet secretary Pradeep Sinha two months earlier that Verma, then the CBI director, had called him in February to call off the questioning of the Hyderabad-based businessman. Asthana had reportedly alleged that Babu was being protected by Verma under a monetary deal of Rs 2 crore.
Verma had denied any instances of wrongdoing.
Subsequently, the government intervened to remove both officers and placed them on forced leave following Alok Verma’s decision to arrest a CBI officer from Rakesh Asthana’s team. The government had received information that Rakesh Asthana, the Special Director, was likely to be the next target.
Alok Verma was eventually removed from the CBI in January 2019, while Asthana was appointed as chief of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security.
The recent Delhi High Court order has come on the application filed by Sana, who had challenged the summons issued to him by the ED on 19 July 2019 and 25 July 2019, saying earlier he was cited as a witness but later his status changed to an accused.
Pradeep Koneru also challenged the constitutionality of Section 50(2) (power of authorities regarding summons, production of documents and to give evidence) of the PMLA and sought a declaration that this provision was not applicable to a person who has been arrayed as a witness in the complaint.
Besides seeking the quashing of summons issued to him, Koneru also prayed for quashing of proceedings in the PMLA case.
The court, while rejecting all the arguments filed by Koneru through a battery of lawyers that included Mukul Rohatgi, giving its judgement said that during the course of investigation by the ED, Sana and another accused belonging to the Koneru family (as described in the ED complaint accessed by The Sunday Guardian, the family consists of Rajendra Prasad Koneru and his sons Pradeep and Madhu, owners of the Hyderabad based Trimex group of companies), they in their respective statements admitted having paid crores of rupees to Qureshi through their employee Aditya Sharma for obtaining illegal favour from government servants after using his influence.
As per the investigation by ED, Qureshi, who was considered immune to prosecution till May 2014, given his enormous clout, through his company, India Premier Services Private Limited, was getting lucrative government contracts while bribing top government officials. The ED had noted that their investigation was hampered after the permission required to carry out certain investigations against the said officials was denied by the Intelligence Bureau. The IB during this period was led by Nehchal Sandhu (2010-12) and Syed Asif Ibrahim (January 2013-December 2014).
The exchange of bribe money was also confirmed by Sharma when he was confronted with the facts and evidence on record. He confirmed the monetary transactions received by him. This was further confirmed and was found in tandem with the contents of BBM (Blackberry messenger) messages retrieved by the forensics lab, CERT-In.
For these transactions, Qureshi allegedly used the services of Delhi based hawala operators.
The complaint filed by the ED, which is a part of the case documents and contains the now proven conversation between the various accused in the case, shows Qureshi seeking help from influential officers and politicians who were placed at prominent places during the last few months of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA-II) rule.
It also detailed the immovable property that was bought by Qureshi which included: Flat at Chesterfield house, South Audley Street, Mayfair, London; Flat no 2902, 29th floor, Paramount, Shekh Zyed Road, Dubai; Flat 265, 66th Street, 2nd Avenue apartment, Sollo building, New York; 6 Temasek, Boulevard, Suntec Tower-IV Singapore; Flat no 6 Fitzhar Dinge house, Portman square, London; and two flats in Marina and Burz Al Khalifa, Dubai, none of which were declared by Qureshi as per Indian law.
The alleged conversation record that has been made a part of the case record shows, Koneru and Qureshi purportedly referring to former CBI Joint Director (JD) Lakshminarayana, a 1990 batch Maharashtra cadre IPS officer, who was posted in Hyderabad at that time, as “dog”. In another message on 14 May, Pradeeep Koneru told Qureshi that “Dog going off tomorrow, handing over charge to Arnuachalam JD Tamil Nadu”. This is likely the then Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Joint Director, Chennai region, S. Arunachalam who later replaced Lakshminarayana on 16 June 2013.
On 22 April 2013, Pradeep Koneru told Qureshi that “Dog was spreading all gossip around, the boss is bad, all garbage”, to which Qureshi responded that “Ok, will inform him”. While it is not clear who the boss is, it can be said with fair amount of certainty that since “Dog” was a Joint Director, the “boss” referred to by Koneru was A.P. Singh.
In the same month, Koneru in a series of messages exchanged with Qureshi told him that he was in Delhi and wanted to meet the boss, to which Qureshi said that the boss was in Europe.
In July, Koneru asked Qureshi if he wanted to come and meet the new JD in Chennai, to which Qureshi said “No, not at all there is problem we will call him to Delhi by boss”. During the same month, Koneru messaged Qureshi that he had confirmed knowledge that the JD was in Delhi and if he could meet him. Qureshi told him that the “Boss has left, so let me”.
In a message exchange between Qureshi and Rajesh Sharma, MD of Money Matters Private Limited, Mumbai, on 10 October 2012, Sharma allegedly messaged Qureshi that “Sanctions to prosecute of two serving public servants required. On merit bank has refused for one GM. For another public servant competent authority is the ministry which has also decided to decline sanction. To help Narayanswami can those two refusal be accepted (sic) and no appeal made to CVC. And thus some way can be find to drop T S Narayansami. Kindly help.” On the same day, Sharma again exchanged message with Qureshi and wrote, “Spoken. He says unless he do not get relief by he gets dropped, he will end up helping two others but himself still getting left. Unless he gets relief, he do not sure whether what he should do. He wud like to see C sheet first.”
On 15 October, Sharma allegedly messaged Qureshi that “Chargesheet in that case is file just three days bk..! Will share u copy so u will come to know about filing date.”
To this Qureshi responded, “Was out to Lahore Indian phone don’t work there. No need copy of C.S. AS once Charge sheet finalised by CBI it goes to legal cell after few days. I know this and nothing can change once Cbi sends to legal cell.”
In December 2018, top officials of public sector banks, financial institutions and private companies including Sharma were discharged by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in a separate multi-million rupee bribery scam of 2010. On 23 November 2010, the Economic Offences Wing of CBI had conducted raids in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata and Jalandhar and arrested Naresh Chopra, who was the Secretary (Investment), Life Insurance Corporation (LIC); Ramchandran Nair, who was the director and chief executive officer, LIC Housing Finance Limited; Ram N. Tayal, general manager, Bank of India; Maninder Singh Johar, the director (chartered accountant) Central Bank of India; Venkoba Gujjal, the deputy general manager of Punjab National Bank; and Rajesh Sharma, who was the managing director of Money Matters. Sharma is now the managing director of Capri Global Capital. All such charges have been denied by those close to him.
In his conversation attached by the ED, former CBI Director Singh is the only individual among the conversation records that is in the complaint, to whom Qureshi addresses as “Sir”.
On 24 September 2013, Qureshi asked Singh, “Sir please look into the issue. I spoke to you just yesterday. I just got a call from Dial also to have it cleared. Asap. Thanks.” Within 20 minutes, Singh responded to Qureshi, “Sir I don’t know Asif well enough to request him directly but I know people who know him well. But somebody has to brief what the problem is in detail. I can fix the meeting for Thursday.”
In response, Qureshi wrote, “Sir we will have to handle it very carefully. Because Asif office has issued advisory note against DANATA. And this someone in engineering probably their old partners in India who are in Mumbai. I believe Asif is in Jeddah. Will find out when he is back. And I am also preponing my trip, Just to the homework now. And wait then we will see how to tackle it in the meantime just see who all he listens to. Maybe AP or K Nath. Or someone else. Also any of your close friends who knows him well. Regards.”
Officials believe that “DANATA” refers to Dubai National Air Travel Agency (DNTA), which is an Emirati airport services provider, which provides aircraft ground handling, cargo, travel, and flight catering services across five continents.
To this, Singh replied, “Ok let me know when u r coming back. U may not need to go through Shinde.” A few minutes later, Qureshi wrote to Singh again: “Sir I am trying to come back by Monday but in the meanwhile can I send my ceo to you tomorrow ot (sic) explain you. You must understand first. Her name is deep Gandhi. Let me know time and place. Should you talk to GMR?”
In another conversation between the two, Singh wrote to Qureshi, “Sir I have spoken to Nehchal who said he would convey to Bharadwaj. Should get the feedback today. I have told kapadia for 20th to 26th. Hope that is ok. Also I left my ipad mini in London. Request Nasreen if she can bring it. Rangs will coordinate. Many Tkx.” In subsequent messages, Qureshi confirms that he has received the iPad, which is with him.
In a conversation dated 3 October 2021, the identity of T.S. Narayansami is revealed as Qureshi tells Singh, “Sir the petition I gave you last nite please help TS Narayansami Ex Chairman Bank of India who is known to our family for 30 years. Others I don’t know. Thanks and regards.” To this Singh responded, “Checked. Charge sheet already filed. Now he has to approach the post the courts for relief.”
A 4 July conversation between Qureshi and Singh, officials believe, was related to money being given to Singh in lieu of some documents that were exchanged in London.
Qureshi to Singh, “From the file you left with me in Lon in the restaurant would you need some documents from there.” Singh responded, “Just a some very small papers. only in Lon for two days. Tkx.” (sic).
This led to another message by Qureshi, “ok. sir 500 words essay is good or 1000 words. Size of your jacket and shirts please fast thanks.” Singh replied to this by stating, “500. 40cm and 16 collar size.”
The ED has also attached a chat between Qureshi and Raghini Brar, daughter of A.P. Singh, In the series of chats, Qureshi is telling her that he has sent a specific amount of money in September, October and November, which is responded to Brar by stating that “Thanks so much moin uncle!! You’re making me so rich.” To this Qureshi responds that the money will go up in the coming days as “Summer is lean period for meat business”. All charges are denied by sources close to Qureshi.