Aviation scam: Court sends lobbyist Talwar's close aide to judicial custody

New Delhi : A Delhi court on Friday sent Yasmin Kapoor, a close aide of corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar, to two-week judicial custody in a money laundering case related to negotiations that allegedly favoured foreign private airlines and caused loss to state-owned Air India.

Special Judge Anuradha Shukla Bhardwaj sent Kapoor to judicial custody till November 1 after advocate Nitesh Rana, the Enforcement Directorate's special public prosecutor, told the court that she was not required for further custodial interrogation in the case.

The ED had taken Kapoor into custody on October 3 after she was produced before the court. The court had last month cancelled the anticipatory bail granted to Kapoor in the money laundering case after Rana submitted that she was misusing the bail.

There were reasons to believe that the tainted money, received from the foreign airlines, was used for the acquisition of Kapoor's residential property in New Delhi, Rana said. The ED had claimed that several companies, in which Kapoor was a shareholder along with Talwar, received the proceeds of the crime. Kapoor was granted anticipatory bail by the court on March 22, while Talwar was in judicial custody in the case lodged by the ED.

She had sought anticipatory bail claiming that the ED threatened her to take names and also to convince Talwar to give names of government officials or political functionaries, failing which she would be arrested. Talwar was deported from the UAE in connection with the money laundering case.