The Supreme Court chose not to overturn a Delhi High Court ruling that upheld the dismissal of actor Jacqueline Fernandez plea to set aside an ECIR (the equivalent of an FIR) in a ₹200 crore money laundering case involving the alleged conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar, news agency said.
“We will not interfere at this stage,” a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih told senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who represented Fernandez.
Supreme court rejects the Jacqueline Fernandez plea
Fernandez had approached the SC to challenge the Delhi High Court’s July 3 order, which dismissed her petition seeking to quash the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in the money laundering case.
The actor accused in the case filed against Chandrasekhar and had appeared before the ED for questioning during the investigation. The Delhi Police charged Chandrasekhar with allegedly defrauding the spouses of Ranbaxy’s former promoters, Shivinder Singh and Malvinder Singh, of ₹200 crore, according to the PTI report.
Actress spoke on ‘pick and choose’ policy
The Delhi High Court rejected Jacqueline Fernandez claim that the ED was applying a “pick and choose” policy by not pursuing similar charges against other actors, such as TV personalities Nikki Tamboli, Chahatt Khanna, and Sophia Singh.
In its 95-page verdict, the High Court highlighted that the principle of treating similar cases alike applies in bail applications but cannot be used to quash a charge, as that would completely nullify the ECIR against the petitioner. The judgment said: “Whether the investigating agency chose a pick and choose policy or decided not to proceed against the others, based on the merits of the case, is not an issue under consideration before this court; the petitioner is always at liberty to raise this issue at an appropriate stage.”
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