By IANS
New Delhi : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will assess the value and veracity of the property papers submitted by a disciple of self-styled godman Chandraswami as surety after a court granted him permission to go abroad.
Chandraswami alias Nemi Chand Jain has furnished the surety amount of Rs.11 million by way of depositing the original property documents.
While granting him permission to go abroad for a period of one month, the Delhi High Court had Jan 31 asked Chandraswami to deposit as surety a sum of Rs.1 million each in nine cases of violating the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) cases and Rs.2 million in a case being probed by the CBI.
A disciple of the “sanyasi”, as the well wisher described Chandraswami, submitted his own property documents as surety, saying the godman had no assets and was not a tax payer.
“Chandraswami has filed the property papers saying he does not have fixed deposit receipts of the required amount. But we will have to check the genuineness of the documents first,” a senior CBI official said.
Once close to several top political leaders, including late prime ministers P.V. Narsimha Rao and Chandra Shekhar, Chandraswami is facing trial in several cases and the CBI is also probing his suspected role in former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.
He will also provide full details of his itinerary to the ED and the CBI before leaving the country to visit Britain, the United Arab Emirates and Mauritius for a period of one month to meet his disciples.
The ED and the CBI had moved the high court challenging a trial court’s order allowing Chandraswami’s foreign visit. But the high court dismissed the investigating agencies’ contention that the godman might not return if allowed to go abroad.