The Andhra Pradesh High Court granted interim bail to Persons accused of Money Laundering by creating forged documents for transactions in banks.
The petitioner, Bhimendra Kumar Goyal has sought bail who is alleged of an offense under Section 3 read with 4 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. In pursuance of the conspiracy created false and forged documents for the purpose of cheating and used the said false documents as genuine knowing fully well as false and made transactions in various banks fraudulently and dishonestly and had a wrongful gain to them correspondingly loss to the Government of India by way of transferring Rs.569 crores in foreign exchange transferring the amount outside India i.e. Singapore, Hongkong, and China on the basis of bogus documents.
It has been stated that the petitioner is a senior citizen who is aged about 62 years and is suffering from various aged related ailments including Bronchial Asthma, Hyperlipidemia with Coronary Artery Disease, hypertension, uncontrolled diabetes mellitus, essential hypertension, Severe Osteoarthritis Bilateral Knee Joints, Grade-2 internal hemorrhoids with bleeding per rectum, anxiety neurosis, vertigo with Syncopal Attack and Cervical Spondylitis with Radiculopathy, as such his case may be considered for grant of bail.
On the other hand, the respondent authority contended that the petitioner is a big flight risk as he is having deep roots in Singapore and Hongkong, and if bail is granted, the petitioner would not be present for trial. The petitioner has a long history of fleeing from justice. The petitioner did not respond to the summons issued by the respondent under Section 50 of the PMLA Act. The COFEPOSA detention order issued by the Government of India in the year 2015 could not be executed till 2020 as the petitioner fled India and continued to abscond till 2019 and as such the petitioner is not entitled to bail.
The court heard Mr. Vikram Chowdary and Mr. P. Veerareddy, Senior Counsel representing Mr. Gnani Vivek Karri, counsel for the petitioner, and Mr. Josyula Bhaskara Rao, learned Standing Counsel for Enforcement Directorate.
The single-judge bench of Justice Lalitha Kanneganti took into consideration the factors that the petitioner has been languishing in jail for the last 360 days, petitioner himself voluntarily surrendered before the Court below in the year 2019, other accused were already enlarged on bail and the health condition of the petitioner, this Court deems it appropriate to grant interim bail to the petitioner for a period one month on certain conditions.
Therefore, the court ordered that the petitioner shall be enlarged on interim bail for a period of one month on his executing a bond for a sum of Rs.10,00,000/- with two sureties each for a like sum to the satisfaction of learned Metropolitan Sessions Judge-cum-Additional District and Sessions Judge-cum-Special Judge for Trial of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Visakhapatnam. On such release, the petitioner shall not leave the country and shall not tamper with evidence and influence the witnesses.
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