New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday denied granting any relief to journalist Rana Ayyub in the wake of her involvement in a money laundering case. The HC bench of Justice Chandrabhari Singh issued a notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and directed the agency to file a reply by April 4, when the next hearing is scheduled to take place.
Advocate Vrunda Grover, appearing for Ayyub, said "Ayyub is a journalist and she has to go to London and Italy to attend international events. He said that Ayyub is cooperating with the ED in the investigation. The documents sought by the ED's Delhi office were in Mumbai's zonal office. Later, the zonal office of Mumbai sent those documents directly to the ED office of Delhi".
Also read: ED stops journalist Rana Ayyub from flying abroad, asks her to join probe
Grover further noted that the Delhi office of ED had not issued any notice in the case. "Immigration had cleared her passport in the airport, but she was stopped right before the flight took off," she stated.
Representing ED, Additional Solicitor Genera SV Raju said there existed serious allegations of funds misappropriation against Ayyub, amounting to more than Rs 1 crore, in the name of a charity initiative. "She has shown a fake bill. The documents that were asked from her were not given, but other documents were handed over", he said. Ayyub was supposed to travel to London and Italy on April 1 for events in UK and Italy around cyberattacks on women journalists.
