The Ministry of Home Affairs has accorded sanction for CBI inquiry against jailed AAP leader Satyendar Jain under the Prevention of Corruption (POC) Act, for allegedly extorting Rs 10 crores from notorious conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar, who was then lodged in Tihar Jail, government sources said on Friday.
Delhi LG, VK Saxena in February this year, had sent the proposal of the CBI to MHA for granting approval to prosecute/ investigate Jain u/s 17A of PoC Act, they added. Jain is accused of extorting Rs 10 crore as “protection money” from Sukesh Chandrashekhar.
Jain and former Tihar Jail DG Sandeep Goyal are accused of running an extortion racket in Tihar Jail and collecting protection money from high profile prisoners lodged in various jails of Delhi.
Besides this, Sukesh Chandrashekhar had accused the AAP leader and Sandeep Goyal and other Tihar Jail officials Rajkumar and Mukesh Prasad of extorting Rs 12.50 crore between the year 2019-22.
Chandrashekhar had also sent a complaint to the LG of Delhi on the matter.
It is alleged that Jain and other officials of Tihar Jail, in exchange of money, misused their government position and provided many facilities to the prisoners in jail against the jail manual.
Earlier, the Supreme Court on March 18 dismissed the regular bail plea of former Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain in a money laundering case investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
A bench of justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal asked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, who was out on interim bail, was asked to “surrender forthwith”. Jain, who was granted release from jail on medical grounds for over nine months, returned to prison. Alongside him, AAP leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, and Vijay Nair are also in Tihar.
Jain was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on May 30, 2022, on allegations of money laundering through four companies purportedly associated with him.
The ED case is based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) complaint registered on the allegation that Satyender Jain had acquired movable properties in the name of various persons from February 14, 2015, to May 31, 2017, which he could not satisfactorily account for.
