Jaipur: The Jaipur Bench of the Rajasthan High Court has rejected the bail plea of former minister and senior Congress leader Mahesh Joshi. He was arrested by ED on April 24th for his alleged involvement in the Rs 900 crore Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) scam.
The High Court had reserved the verdict on August 8th after hearing the arguments of both sides.
A case of money laundering has been registered in the Jal Jeevan Mission scam. Joshi had applied for bail in the High Court, as his bail plea was rejected by the special court for ED cases.
Senior advocate Vivekraj Bajwa, arguing on behalf of Mahesh Joshi, said that his client has been implicated under political pressure. Joshi's name is not even mentioned in the original case registered by the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB).
Despite this, he was arrested based on a one-year-old notice. The advocate said that the ED has accused his client of a transaction of Rs 2.01 crore, but there is no concrete evidence of this.
Bajwa also questioned the allegation of a transaction of Rs 50 lakh in the company of Joshi's son, while this amount was taken as a loan and was later returned. In such a situation, it cannot be considered a part of the crime.
On the other hand, ED's advocate Akshay Bhardwaj, opposing the bail, said that Joshi had taken a bribe in the tender process. Apart from this, under section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the accused can be granted bail only when the court is prima facie satisfied that he is not guilty of this crime. If the accused is granted bail, he can influence the witnesses. Therefore, his bail plea should be rejected.
Notably, the Jal Jeevan Mission scam was a major political issue in the assembly elections of Rajasthan, as Mahesh Joshi is a senior Congress leader and is known to be close to former CM Ashok Gehlot, who even faced a show-cause notice from the party for calling the meeting of party MLAs when there was a threat to the leadership of the then CM Ashok Gehlot.
