Jharkhand HC grants Bail to Chartered Accountant / IP in PMLA Case [Read Order]

The Jharkhand High Court has granted bail to a Chartered Accountant/Insolvency Professional in a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

He submitted that the petitioner is a Chartered Accountant by profession and after passing the examination, he became eligible to be appointed as an Insolvency Professional by the Committee of Creditors under Section 3(19) of IBC, 2016 for handling the companies under liquidation. According to him, during the course of investigation, the statement of the petitioner was recorded under section 50 of the PMLA Act summoning the petitioner on the basis of the F.I.R. registered by the C.B.I., A.C.B., Dhanbad being RC1(A)/2020-D dated 10.02.2020. it was alleged that the aforementioned F.I.R. by the C.B.I., A.C.B., Dhanbad was registered against the petitioner on the basis of one complaint filed by Amit Sarawgi alleging, inter alia, that the petitioner being ‘Insolvency Professional’ demanded a bribe of Rs.2 lacs per month from Amit Sarawgi for showing leniency in the insolvency resolution process for extending corporate insolvency resolution process from 9 months to two years and also demanded one time bribe of Rs.20 lacs from Amit Sarawgi for obtaining favourable forensic audit/valuation report from identified forensic auditor/valuer and for helping in repossession of plant/company by Amit Sarawgi.

The bail applications filed by the petitioner in the lower courts were rejected.

Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi observed that “On the record, there is nothing to suggest that due to the petitioner at any point of time, the investigation has been delayed. It has been disclosed that the petitioner has cooperated under section 50 of the PMLA Act. Admittedly, the allegation against the petitioner is of taking bribe of Rs.5 lakhs and proviso to section 45 of the PMLA Act speaks of that if the proceed is less than of rupees one crore, the bail can be granted.”

Granting bail to the petitioner, the Court held that “the purpose of exemption under section 205 Cr.P.C is that the order of the learned magistrate should be such which does not make any unnecessary harassment to the accused and at the same time does not cause any prejudice to the complainant and the learned court is required to ensure that exemption from personal appearance granted to the accused is not an abuse or delay the trial. The coordinate Bench of this Court in the case of Riaz Khan Faridi v. The State of Jharkhand through Central Bureau of Investigation and analogous case(supra) has also considered the petition under section 205 Cr.P.C which arose pursuant to the F.I.R registered by the C.B.I. under the various sections of the IPC as well as the P.C.Act.”

To Read the full text of the Order CLICK HERE

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