Journalist Rana Ayyub approaches Delhi HC against attachment of fund by ED

Rana Ayyub. File pic

Journalist Rana Ayyub on Wednesday moved the Delhi High Court against the attachment of funds by the Enforcement Directorate.

Ayyub's plea stated that "Provisional attachment has expired after 180 days yet Adjudicating Authority PMLA is continuing with proceedings"

The bench of Justice Yashwant Varma is set to hear this plea today.

Enforcement Directorate in the month of February had provisionally attached her assets worth Rs 1.77 crore in connection with alleged irregularities in the collection of charitable funds for COVID relief work.

Also read: Delhi High Court allows Rana Ayyub to travel abroad on certain conditions

According to the ED, the investigations made it abundantly clear that the funds were raised in the name of charity in a completely pre-planned and systematic manner and the funds were not utilized completely for the purpose of which the funds were raised.

ED stated that the FIR was registered on the basis of a complaint dated August 28, 2021, made by Vikas Sankrityayan residence of Ghaziabad, U.P.

ED further stated that the said FIR discloses that Rana Ayyub raised huge amounts running in crores via the 'Ketto' platform (which is an online crowdfunding platform) in three campaigns i.e. Funds for slum dwellers and farmers during April- May 2020, Relief work for Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra during June- September 2020 and Help for Covid-19 impacted people in India during May-June 2021.

The Delhi High Court in April had permitted Journalist Rana Ayyub to travel abroad and said there is no cogent reason for presuming that the Petitioner (Rana Ayyub) would not appear before the Investigation Agency and hence, no case is made out for issuing the impugned Lookout Circular (LOC).

The court had said the impugned LOC is accordingly liable to be set aside as being devoid of merits as well as for infringing the Human right of the Petitioner to travel abroad and to exercise her freedom of speech and expression. For the reasons discussed above, the impugned LOC is set aside and quashed.

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