News Analysis India

Tag: Vinay Mishra

  • Cattle smuggling: Court declares ex-TMC youth wing leader Vinay Mishra proclaimed offender

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday declared former TMC youth wing leader Vinay Mishra a proclaimed offender (PO) in a money laundering case linked to the alleged cattle smuggling racket across the India-Bangladesh border.

    Special Judge Raghubir Singh passed the order on an application moved by the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) Special Public Prosecutor Nitesh Rana.

    In the application, Rana told the court that Mishra, who was the alleged kingpin in the smuggling racket, failed to appear before the court despite being summoned by the judge and even an arrest warrant has been issued against him for his non-appearance in the matter.

    Rana said that Mishra was required to be declared a PO for further course of action against him which includes a Red Corner Notice.

    The court had in April taken cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the ED against Mishra, Mohammad Enamul Haque, and others and the judge had issued a summons for the accused to appear before it.

    According to the ED, the case was lodged following an FIR by the CBI in Kolkata against Satish Kumar, the then Commandant of the Border Security Force (BSF).

    The FIR alleged that Haque, along with Kumar and other public servants and private persons was involved in the smuggling of cattle.

    It was alleged that the smuggling of cattle through the India-Bangladesh border was carried out at Haque’s instance and he paid bribes to the security personnel for facilitating the illegal trade.

    NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday declared former TMC youth wing leader Vinay Mishra a proclaimed offender (PO) in a money laundering case linked to the alleged cattle smuggling racket across the India-Bangladesh border.

    Special Judge Raghubir Singh passed the order on an application moved by the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) Special Public Prosecutor Nitesh Rana.

    In the application, Rana told the court that Mishra, who was the alleged kingpin in the smuggling racket, failed to appear before the court despite being summoned by the judge and even an arrest warrant has been issued against him for his non-appearance in the matter.

    Rana said that Mishra was required to be declared a PO for further course of action against him which includes a Red Corner Notice.

    The court had in April taken cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the ED against Mishra, Mohammad Enamul Haque, and others and the judge had issued a summons for the accused to appear before it.

    According to the ED, the case was lodged following an FIR by the CBI in Kolkata against Satish Kumar, the then Commandant of the Border Security Force (BSF).

    The FIR alleged that Haque, along with Kumar and other public servants and private persons was involved in the smuggling of cattle.

    It was alleged that the smuggling of cattle through the India-Bangladesh border was carried out at Haque’s instance and he paid bribes to the security personnel for facilitating the illegal trade.

  • Coal scam: Delhi court issues non-bailable warrant against TMC youth leader Vinay Mishra

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: A Delhi Court has issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against TMC youth leader Vinay Mishra in a money laundering case related to the alleged coal pilferage scam in Asansol, West Bengal.

    According to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the case relates to Eastern Coalfields’ mines at Kunustoria and Kajora areas in and around Asansol, and also involves TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee and his wife Rujira Banerjee.

    Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma passed the order against Mishra on October 11, on an application moved by the ED.

    “Accused Vinay Mishra is intentionally not appearing before the court, accordingly, NBWs be issued against him,” the judge said.

    ED’s special public prosecutor Nitesh Rana told the court that Mishra evaded the summons issued by department.

    The court also noted that the accused himself did not chose to appear before it and was rather trying to pre-empt the proceedings through intervention of his wife by filing application challenging the legality of the proceedings.

    It held that accused’s wife, Neha Mishra, had no locus in the present proceedings.

    Neha, through an application, had submitted that the accused surrendered his nationality and had been admitted to nationality of Dubai and it was in the knowledge of the department; despite this, summons were served upon the family members at Kolkata address.

    Rana submitted before the court that as a part of the investigation some incriminating material was available against Vinay Mishra in respect of laundering of crime proceeds and the authorized officer summoned him on four occasions, but he failed to appear.

    Recently the Delhi High Court exempted Rujira from personal appearance before the court.

    Rujira recently had challenged a Delhi Court order directing her to appear before it, in connection with the case.

    Abhishek Banerjee and his wife Rujira had earlier approached the Delhi High Court seeking quashing of summons issued to them by the ED for questioning in the case linked to an alleged coal scam in West Bengal, saying they are residents of Kolkata and should not be compelled to join the probe in the national capital.

    The ED has lodged the case under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act on the basis of a November 2020 FIR registered by the CBI that alleged a multi-crore coal pilferage scam.

  • Former TMC leader Vinay Mishra sends legal notice to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari

    By ANI
    KOLKATA: Former TMC leader Vinay Mishra on Tuesday served a legal notice to the Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, demanding to delete his June 11 “false” tweet, in which he said that Mishra renounced Indian citizenship but was made general secretary of TMC youth wing in 2020.

    Former TMC leader who is facing an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in cattle and coal smuggling cases, has sent the legal notice to Adhikari through his lawyer which states that “In a tweet dated 11 June 2021 published from Twitter handle “@SuvenduWB”, you have made a factually incorrect and malicious statement against my client.”

    On June 11, Adhikari had tweeted, “In year 2018 Vinay Mishra seems to be a Citizen of VANUATU and renouncing Indian citizenship. In year 2020 the same person is made the General Secretary of TMC Youth wing. Drawing the kind attention of ECI, Does Indian law permit a foreigner to be a part of a political party?”

    Against this, Mishra in the legal notice said he had left India on September 16, 2020, much prior to when the CBI initiated a case against him in cattle and coal smuggling cases. At the time, he was appointed as the Trinamool youth wing general secretary and was a citizen of India.

    He had resigned from the post of General Secretary prior to the surrendering of his passport on December 19, 2020.

    The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has issued a red corner notice against Mishra in a case of cattle smuggling.

    On June 7, during a hearing, Mishra’s lawyers filed an affidavit stating he renounced his citizenship on December 19 last year by filing an application at the Indian Consulate in Dubai. The application was accepted on December 22, the affidavit said. 

  • ED attaches Kolkata asset of TMC youth leader, brother in cattle-smuggling case

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The ED on Thursday said it has attached an asset of TMC youth leader Vinay Mishra and his arrested brother Vikas Mishra in a money-laundering case linked to alleged cattle smuggling across the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal.

    The agency said a provisional order for the attachment of the immovable property located at 1, Dharamdas Row in Kolkata has been issued by it under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

    In a statement, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said the property was “acquired by them (the Mishra brothers) in May, 2017 by way of shares purchase of a company called Anant Tradecom Private Limited”.

    “The shares of this company were acquired by the Mishra family by paying the consideration of Rs 3.5 crore to the earlier shareholders,” it said.

    Describing the link of the brothers with the cattle-smuggling case, the agency alleged that “between October, 2016-March 2017, Vinay Mishra and Vikas Mishra received funds amounting to Rs 6.1 crore from cattle smuggler Md Enamul Haque”.

    “For purchasing the shares of Anant Tradecom Private Limited, funds were layered by way of accommodation entries from two Kolkata-based shell companies and by way of cash deposits in the accounts of the members of the Mishra family,” the ED alleged.

    The property that has been attached was acquired by the Mishra brothers by “laundering” the proceeds of crime, it claimed.

    The two are being probed both by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in this case and Haque was arrested by the CBI in November last year.

    In a chargesheet filed before a special court in West Bengal’s Asansol, the CBI had alleged that Haque was the mastermind of the illegal cattle trade and was assisted by two other accused in alleged connivance with Border Security Force (BSF) Commandant Satish Kumar, who was posted at the Murshidabad and Malda regions of the state.

    Some others have also been named in the CBI chargesheet in connection with cattle smuggling that is rampant along the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal.

    Vinay Mishra, who has not joined the probe in the case by the two agencies till now, has been named as an accused by the CBI in a supplementary chargesheet filed recently.

    The role of the brothers is also being investigated by the two central agencies in an illegal coal mining and pilferage case.

    Vikas Mishra was recently arrested by the ED here in the latter case.

    The agency has claimed that the brothers received “proceeds of crime worth Rs 730 crore on behalf of some influential persons and for themselves” in the alleged illegal coal-mining case involving an estimated amount of Rs 1,300 crore.

    These actions come as the eight-phase election to the 294-member West Bengal Assembly is set to begin on March 27.

  • Cattle and coal scam: ED conducts searches at TMC leader Vinay Mishra’s Kolkata residence

    By ANI
    KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate is conducting search operations at the residence of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Vinay Mishra in Kolkata in connection with cattle and coal scam, sources informed on Friday.

    Earlier on January 27, an arrest warrant has been issued against the TMC leader in a cattle smuggling case by the Asansol Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court.

    The Central Bureau of Investigation had also conducted raids at the Mishra’s residence on December 31 in connection with the same case. A lookout notice was also issued against him.  

  • Why reluctant to allow Opposition leaders to visit government hospitals if Yogi developed UP, asks AAP

    By PTI
    BALLIA: An Aam Aadmi Party MLA on Saturday said if the Yogi Adityanath government had done development works, it would not had to stop leaders of opposition parties from visiting state-run hospitals.

    Vinay Mishra, the AAP MLA from Dwarka in Delhi, also accused the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh of running the state like a monarch does.

    “Atrocities are being unleashed using democratic means on the people who are protesting and they are sent to jail. The condition of government hospitals, education and roads (in UP) is extremely bad,” Mishra alleged.

    He also said if the Yogi Adityanath government had done development, it need not stop leaders of opposition parties from visiting the government hospitals.

    Mishra said the AAP will field candidates for zila panchayat members in UP, and claimed his party will form a government in the 2022 Assembly elections in the state.