The Enforcement Directorate, in its supplementary chargesheet filed against actor Jacqueline Fernandez claimed she admitted that conman Sukesh Chandrashekar gave Rs 15 lakh in cash to writer Advaita Kala for a script she had written for the actor. This contradicts her earlier statement to the investigating agency that she gave only chocolates and flowers to Kala. According to the chargesheet, Kala, an award-winning screenwriter and novelist, told the ED that she was approached by Fernandez in 2021 to write a script for a web series being produced by her.
The ED has alleged that Rs 15 lakh was sent by Sukesh to Kala, who had sought advance payment for the job. This transaction is now part of the ED investigation.The ED has alleged that in her statement registered on August 30, Fernandez denied that Sukesh had sent Rs 15 lakh to Kala in the first week of August 2021 on her behalf. Instead, she told ED, she only gave chocolates and flowers to the writer.In her second statement recorded on October 20, 2021, however, she admitted that Sukesh had delivered Rs 15 lakh in cash to Kala at her house as “he was keen to produce the movie”, the chargesheet states. “This is contradictory to her claim in her statement dated 30.08.2021. She admitted this now after realising that the investigation has enough evidence to prove this transaction with Ms Advaita Kala,” the chargesheet states.
The ED stated that Kala, in her statement recorded on October 6, 2021, told the agency that she received a call from a person who introduced himself as the “DLF chairman’s secretary” and said he was calling on behalf of Fernandez. He told her he would send a packet containing an advance. The ED has alleged that Sukesh used illegal money to purchase gifts for Fernandez which he had extorted by cheating high-profile people including former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh's wife Aditi Singh. He is alleged to have conned Aditi Singh and her sister by impersonating as the Union home secretary and also as the Law secretary over phone.The ED in April provisionally attached ₹7.27 crore funds of the actor under the PMLA apart from ₹15 lakh in cash as the agency called these funds as "proceeds of crime"