New Delhi, April 25 (IANS) Former telecom minister A. Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi were Friday charge sheeted together with 17 others by the Enforcement Directorate over money laundering in the 2G spectrum allocation case, a day after the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu.

The Enforcement Directorate filed the charge sheet before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge O.P. Saini, who fixed April 30 as the next date of hearing.

The charge sheet named Raja, Kanimozhi, Dayalu Ammal (wife of DMK chief M. Karunanidhi) Swan telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt. Ltd. (KFVPL) Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal, Bollywood producer Karim Morani, Kalaignar TV director Sharad Kumar and P. Amirthan.

The companies named are Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. (STPL), Kusegaon Realty Pvt. Ltd., Cineyug Media and Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. (Cineyug Films), Kalaignar TV (KTV) Pvt. Ltd., Dynamix Realty, Eversmile Construction Company Private Limited, Conwood Construction and Developers (P) Ltd., DB Realty Ltd., and Nihar Construction Pvt. Ltd.

The accused have been booked under various sections dealing with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

“The investigation revealed that amount of Rs.200 crore was paid by promoters of STPL, using their group entity Dynamix Realty, to KTV, through KFVPL and CFPL (Cineyug Films) in the garb of legitimate financial transaction, i.e. as loan/share application money,” ED counsel N. K. Matta informed the special court.

Matta added that the payment was illegal gratification for and on behalf of Raja and his associates in lieu of illegal favours given to STPL for grant of UAS Licence.

The ED apprised the court that investigation has further revealed that the return of Rs.200 crore has been done alongwith the additional amount in order to show this illegal payment in the guise of legal and bonafide financial transactions.

“Thus in garb of loan it was in fact the illegal gratification, which was apparently projected as untainted property,” the ED said.

Besides, the reverse flow of such amount further establishes the projections of proceeds of crime as untainted and is nothing but the process of laundering of money, it added.

The investigating agency held that the entire amount, as stated, to the tune of Rs.223.55 crore was, in fact, proceeds of crime.

It said that “the projection of tainted money as untainted was done by the accused persons/entities in two parts, firstly when the money flowed from Dynamix Realty to KTV and again when the money flowed back from KTV to Dynamix Realty”.

“For the both transactions i.e. giving the money to KTV and its subsequent return, the accused persons/entities gave it a colour of regular buisness transactions with the intent to conceal its true nature and to project the said tainted amount as untainted,” the investigating agency said.

The ED informed the court that “the process of structuring of these dubious transactions for layering of the illegal gratification is a process to project the illicit money as untainted and is squarely covered under the provisions of PMLA”.