Mar 13, 2011, 12.33am IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/ED-officials-to-move-SC-against-Alis-bail/articleshow/7689209.cms

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate will move the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of Hasan Ali Khan's bail as it feels that definite information about his alleged money laundering activities were brushed aside by the Mumbai trial court before giving him relief.

The directorate also feels that the Supreme Court, which is hearing a PIL seeking recovery of black money stashed abroad and is conversant with the prima facie evidence gathered against Khan, would be in a better position to appreciate the agency's plea.

The trial court's decision to grant bail came as a shock to ED, which through Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam had last week presented a status report on Khan's alleged money laundering activities to the apex court Bench comprising Justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar.

ED sources said the probe status report had apprised the Supreme Court about enough evidence to slap a case against Khan under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and also informed the Bench about Khan handling at least three accounts in UBS Bank AG in Switzerland.

The agency in its appeal would tell the court that the money trail has given information about dealings of Khan with Saudi Arabian arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. However, they conceded that they were yet to lay their hands on details of the dealings-whether or not these pertained to any arms transaction.

The PMLA related investigations required ascertaining facts spread across many countries and will take some time, says the agency. Hence, it was expected of the trial court to give sufficient time to the ED to verify the source information painstakingly gathered by it.

The government has received some secret reports and is prepared to share it with the Bench of Justices Reddy and Nijjar on March 18 - the next date of hearing on the PIL filed by former law minister Ram Jethmalani.

The petitioner had sought judicial intervention to force the government to actively pursue the source of black money stashed abroad and make public the names of Indian account-holders in Leichtenstein's LGT Bank.

The government had agreed to reveal the names only after prosecution was initiated against them by the Income Tax Department. However, the Bench had asked the government to treat these cases, including that of Khan, not as mere tax evasion cases but from the perspective of national security.

During the last hearing, the Bench had perused the status report and asked the government to examine invoking anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), against Khan given the nature of evidence gathered by the agency.