The Supreme Court will hear a petition filed by Bollywood actor Jacqueline Fernandez challenging a Delhi court order framing charges against her and alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar in a ₹200 crore money laundering case.
A bench of justices PK Mishra and AS Chandurkar passed the order after Fernandez’s lawyer mentioned the matter on Tuesday for urgent listing.
Fernandez has challenged the trial court order directly before the top court without approaching the Delhi high court, citing a "curious case" where she is both a prosecution witness and an accused in the case.
The Delhi court had directed framing of charges against her in the case probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Fernandez’s lawyer, Advocate Rameeza Hakim, told the court that she had earlier moved an application in the ED case to turn an approver, but the ED opposed it, leading her to withdraw the application on April 16.
The ED case originates from an alleged extortion case where Sukesh had induced one Aditi Singh, generating proceeds of crime amounting to more than ₹200 crore through extortion, cheating, impersonation, and criminal intimidation.
Sukesh has multiple cases of extortion and blackmail against him in six cities, and the ED claimed that the alleged proceeds of crime were routed through various bank accounts, hawala channels, cash deliveries, and shell entities.
