ED files chargesheet against Yasmeen Kapoor

The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday filed a chargesheet against Yasmeen Kapoor, a close aide of aviation lobbyist Deepak Talwar, for allegedly assisting the latter in laundering money pertaining to the aviation scandal, two officials familiar with the developments told HT.

One of the officials cited above said they have established money laundering worth ₹144 crore in the latest chargesheet in the case. Earlier, the ED had filed the main chargesheet in the aviation scandal in April this year against Deepak Talwar and his son Aditya Talwar.

Deepak Talwar was deported from Dubai in January this year after which he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate while CBI took his custody on July 26. He is currently in judicial custody. He is accused of receiving payments to the tune of ₹272 crore during 2008-09 from private international airlines in lieu of securing favourable traffic rights using his contacts, due to which Air India had allegedly suffered huge losses. Both CBI and ED have claimed that he arranged kickbacks for the public servants to make Air India give up profit making routes in favour of private airlines.

Yasmin Kapoor was arrested by ED last month. She is also in Tihar jail.

Talwar’s lawyer Tanveer Ahmed Mir had earlier questioned the agencies’ probe against Talwar stating the facilitator is being charged whereas there was no arrest of any bribe giver or bribe taker. He could not be contacted on Saturday.

The ED’s special public prosecutors Nitesh Rana and Navin Kumar Matta filed the supplementary chargesheet against Kapoor on Saturday in the court of Special CBI judge Anuradha Shukla Bhardwaj who took cognizance of the charge sheet and slated the matter to January 7 for scrutiny of the documents.

In its chargesheet filed in September, CBI had claimed that Deepak Talwar influenced the civil aviation ministry officials to illegally secure favourable bilateral agreements and arrangements (or flying rights) for foreign airlines at the cost of national carrier, Air India.

Talwar is being investigated in three cases related to aviation and a case related to violation of FCRA (foreign contribution registration act).

The ED said in a statement in May, “In lieu of securing favourable traffic rights, the (foreign) airlines made payments to the tune of ₹272 crores to Deepak Talwar during 2008-09. He created a web of his own entities and used companies of his son Aditya Talwar, in India and international offshore havens, to launder amount of ₹272 crores received from foreign airlines. Part of these payments were made to a bank account in Bank of Singapore belonging to a company M/s Asiafield Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands and beneficially owned by Deepak Talwar.”