A special court in Lucknow has taken cognisance of the chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate against Congress leader and former Union minister Salman Khurshid’s wife Louise Khurshid and others, alleging they had “laundered” ₹71.50 lakh of central government funds meant for the disabled through a trust, the ED said on Tuesday.

The central agency has alleged offences of money laundering related to the “misuse” of government funds in the distribution of artificial limbs and equipment in 2009-10.

Earlier, the agency had provisionally attached 15 parcels of agricultural land in Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad and bank deposits worth ₹45.92 lakh of the Dr Zakir Husain Memorial Trust run by Louise under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The ED had initiated the investigation based on 17 FIRs registered by the Uttar Pradesh police’s economic offences wing against Pratyush Shukla, a representative of the trust, and others. The police have filed chargesheets in all 17 cases against Athar Farooqui alias Mohammed Athar, the then secretary of the trust, and the then project
director, Louise.

“The ED investigation revealed that the grant-in-aid of ₹71.50 lakh received by the trust was not used for holding camps as sanctioned by the central government. The funds were instead allegedly diverted by Pratyush Shukla, Mohammad Athar and Louise Khurshid for the interest of the trust and their personal gain,” the agency said on Tuesday.

The money-laundering case stems from the Uttar Pradesh police’s FIR
of 2017.

Special public prosecutor Achintya Dwivedi had said that a programme for the distribution of artificial limbs and equipment was organised by the trust at Bhojipura in 2009-10.

The government initiated a probe after receiving allegations of discrepancies. It was found that government funds were misused by using fake seals and signatures at the programme,
Dwivedi alleged.

Louise, Shukla and Farooqui were the three main accused in the case.

Shukla died a few years ago.

Allegations of corruption and forgery were levelled against the trust’s office-bearers in 2012 when Salman Khurshid was a minister in the then UPA
government.

The Khurshids had denied any wrongdoing.