SC Dismisses Rana Ayyub's Plea Challenging Ghaziabad Court Summons Against Her In Money Laundering Case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea filed by Rana Ayyub challenging summons by the Ghaziabad special court in a money laundering case.

A bench of Justices V Ramasubramanian and JB Pardiwala allowed Ayyub to raise the issue of jurisdiction before the trial court, saying it is a question of evidence.

"We have said under Section 3 PMLA, the place where any of the six activities are carried out.. is the place where offence of money laundering takes place. The question as to which is the place is a question of fact decided on evidence. We leave it open to raise this issue before trial court. We are dismissing this petition," the bench stated in its order, reports Bar and Bench.

The Supreme Court had on 31 January reserved its order in Ayyub's plea challenging the court summons against her on the ground of lack of jurisdiction of the Ghaziabad court.

On 25 January, the top court had asked a special court in Ghaziabad to adjourn the proceedings in the money laundering case against Ayyub scheduled for hearing on 27 January to a date after 31 January.

In her writ petition, Ayyub has sought quashing of the proceedings initiated by the ED in Ghaziabad citing lack of jurisdiction as the alleged offence of money laundering occurred in Mumbai.

On 29 November last year, the special PMLA court in Ghaziabad took cognisance of the prosecution complaint (charge sheet) filed by the ED and summoned Ayyub.

The ED charge sheet was filed under section 45 read with section 44 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. On October 12 last year, the ED had filed a charge sheet against Ayyub, accusing her of cheating the public and using Rs 2.69 crore she got in charity for creating personal assets, and also violating the foreign contribution law.

'Rana Ayyub launched three fundraiser charity campaigns on the 'Ketto' platform, starting from April 2020 and collected funds totalling Rs 2,69,44,680,' the ED had said in a statement.

(With inputs from PTI)