A Single Bench of Gauhati High Court has recently held that, filing of supplementary charge sheet by the State is not a sufficient ground to deny bail to the accused in money laundering cases.
The petitioner was the Managing Director of Industrial Co-operative Bank Limited. An allegation has been made against him and 7 other persons alleging that the petitioner has misappropriated a sum of Rs.9,50,61,499/-. He was subsequently arrested and had spent 120 days in judicial custody.
The Petitioner claimed default bail under the Section 167(2), Criminal Procedure Code, in view of Section 65 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
It was submitted by the Directorate of Enforcement that, under Section 44(2) of the PMLA of 2002, the ED is empowered to further investigate the matter and any future complaint would be included in the initial complaint.
It was observed that, “the incomplete complaint (charge sheet in CrPC parlance) filed against the petitioner is against the law stipulated by Section 173 CrPC because law does not permit piecemeal investigation”.
Consequently, the Single Bench of Justice Parthiv Jyoti Saikia granted bail to the petitioner.
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