In a recent case, the Delhi High Court dismissed a bail application for failure to satisfy the condition mentioned under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act ( PMLA ).
Petitioner Dalip Jindal defrauding the banks to the tune of Rs. 527.32 crore, by availing cash credit limits from the banks, and siphoning of the funds. It was found by the enforcement directorate, the respondent in related to Bankey Bihari Group of Companies case. Hence the Directorate of Enforcement had determined that the present applicant Dalip Jindal was involved, through his companies, in sales and purchase, when there was no actual movement of goods. Therefore the petitioner was arrested . Accordingly, the petitioner filed the bail application before the court.
Before the court the counsel for petitioner argued that the the arrest of the applicant on the very same material in the present case is completely unjust and nothing but only an arbitrary exercise of power to arrest provided under Section 19 of PMLA without assigning any grounds which show that how the agency had reached a conclusion that the applicant was guilty of an offence punishable under PMLA. Respondent counsel argued that the petitioner did not satisfied the requirement under Section 45 of PMLA, can be reached, which provides that no person shall be released on bail unless the Court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that he is not guilty of such offense and that he is not likely to commit any offense while on bail.
The bench observed that Section 45(1) of PMLA lists the twin conditions that must be satisfied before an accused in case of money laundering can be enlarged on bail. The petitioner makes false sales and purchase. As a result, the applicant and his companies engaged in a number of fraudulent transactions in which they bought and sold goods from Bankey Behari Group of Companies and made adjustment entries using journal vouchers. In total, approximately Rs. 111.05 crore was paid to entities under the applicant’s control with the intention of hiding and embezzling funds and assets.
Thus the bench observed that the “Special Judge seems to have simply accepted the submission of the learned counsel for the respondent, who was appearing therein, that as the brother of the petitioner has made various communications with drugs traffickers located outside India, the petitioner may hamper the investigation, however, as claimed by the counsel for the petitioner, no material in this regard was placed before the Special Judge.”
After analyzing the facts and arguments of both parties, a single bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma opinion that twin conditions under Section 45 of PMLA are not satisfied since the material on record at this stage points out that the applicant herein was involved in the process of acquisition, possession, concealment of proceeds of crime obtained by way of cheating and forgery and projecting the same as untainted, thereby committing an offence of money-laundering under Section 3 of PMLA.
Therefore the court denied to grant bail to the petitioner.
Mr. Mohit Mathur, Sr. Advocate along with Mr. Vikram Singh Panwar, advocates appeared for petitioner and Ravi Prakash, Special Counsel for ED along with Mr. Varun Agarwal, Mr. Farman Ali, Mr. Aman Rewaria, Mr. Ali Khan, Ms. Astu Khandelwal, Mr. Yashrth Shukla and Mr. Ayushman Kishore, appeared for respondent.
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