The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday opposed actress Jacqueline Fernandez’s plea to become an approver in the ₹200-crore money laundering case against conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar, arguing she actively benefited from crime proceeds and now seeks to evade prosecution.
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ED told special judge Prashant Sharma at Patiala House courts that Fernandez was no “unwitting victim” as she claimed. It said she stayed in constant touch with Chandrasekhar despite knowing his criminal background and received gifts he arranged from laundered funds.
“This consistent interaction through numerous ways of communication and receipt of benefits negate any claim of an unwitting victim and instead highlights her conscious association with the main perpetrator and with the illicit gains,” the response stated.
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The agency described Fernandez’s conduct during the investigation far from cooperative as she consistently failed to make truthful disclosures to ED.
Special Prosecutor Atul Tripathi said that the aim to make an accused an approver is to secure evidence from a less culpable accused to prosecute more culpable ones, but the applicant’s role was not that of a minor participant but of a significant beneficiary of the proceeds of crime.
“Granting her the position of an approver in the present case would be a miscarriage of justice and would undermine the gravity of offence she has committed,” the ED said.
The court set the next hearing for May 12, after Fernandez’s counsel sought time for instructions.
