The Jharkhand High Court granted bail to Advocate Rajeev Kumar, who was booked by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for allegedly possessing unaccounted cash.
The lawyer was arrested in Kolkata with cash amounting to Rupees fifty lakhs.The Enforcement Directorate(ED) registered the case against Rajeev Kumar on the basis of a complaint filed by one Kolkata-based businessman Amit Agrawal alleging extortion. The allegation was that Rajeev Kumar demanded Rupees one Crore from him to get his name removed from a PIL seeking a CBI probe against certain shell companies involved in laundering of black money and political money.
The ED had registered the case against Kumar in its Ranchi office under Section 3 read with Section 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 with scheduled offence under Section 120-B and Section 384 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Section 7A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2018.
The ED has made Amit Agrawal the main accused in the case, accusing him of conspiring to get Rajeev Kumar trapped with financial benefits, with sole intention to influence the outcome of a PIL in collusion with him.
The Bench consisting of Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi noted that “The petitioner is a practicing advocate, in that circumstance, the liability of the petitioner for further investigation, interrogation and facing trial is not jeopardized and he is already held to be not at ‘flight risk’ and there is no possibility of tampering the evidence or influencing/intimidating the witnesses, as has been submitted by the Mr. Nilesh Kumar, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner.”
Therefore, considering all the aspects of the matter including the duration of custody of Kumar who was in jail since August 18, 2022, The Court opined that he was entitled for bail.
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