The detention of OP Khaitan & Co managing partner Gautam Khaitan has been extended again today by a special court on request of the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

He will remained confined to ED custody to submit to their investigations until at least 20 February now, reported NDTV and others.

Khaitan has claimed that he is not really required by the ED anymore, and has applied for bail; the ED is to tell the court why he shouldn’t get bail by 15 February.

Khaitan had late last month come into the ED’s crosshairs and in for jailtime again over allegedly separate money laundering charges against him (which his lawyer rubbished in court as basically another attempt by the investigators to apply the screws).

In his previous incarceration round in 2014, over his alleged involvement in the AgustaWestland chopper scam, he had ended up in ED custody for more than three months.

Supplementary chargesheets in the first case were filed in July 2018.