Delhi court grants bail to bizman in Rs 241 crore money laundering case

PTI, Nov 16, 2024, 6:35 PM IST

A court here has granted bail to a businessman in a Rs 241 crore money laundering case linked to alleged duping of plot buyers, noting that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested him in a “brazen manner” in “disregard” of Delhi High Court orders, adding that the approach needed to be “deprecated”.

Special Judge Gaurav Gupta granted relief to Rajesh Katyal, who was accused of duping innocent plot buyers of their hard-earned money.

The judge noted the submissions made by senior advocates Vikas Pahwa and Geeta Luthra, appearing for the accused, that Delhi High Court directed status quo in the FIR, based on which the ED lodged its case, by an order passed on July 30, 2024.

“Since FIR forms part of the predicate offence (based on which the ED lodged the present case), the ED ought to have abided by the said order. However, in a brazen manner and in disregard of orders passed by a Constitutional court, the ED proceeded to arrest the accused.

“The least the ED could have done was to seek leave of the high court before venturing to arrest the accused. However, in a rather cavalier manner, it was declared on behalf of ED that they are not bound by the said orders of the high court. This approach of ED needs to be deprecated,” the judge said in an order passed on November 14.

The judge also noted that the existence of the predicate scheduled offence itself was doubtful, therefore, “there are reasonable grounds for the court to believe that the accused is not guilty of the alleged offence”.

The judge further observed that the ED not just chose to base its case on quashed/closed FIRs, but also very “conveniently forgot to disclose the same” in its application seeking Katyal’s remand earlier in the case.

The counsel claimed that as per the balance sheets, a net payment of only Rs 30 lakh (approx) has been received by the accused’s company, Mahadev Infratech Pvt Ltd, which belies ED’s claim that Rs 241.18 crore was received.

Noting that the ED was in possession of the account books of the companies, the judge said, “The said extracts of account books shown on behalf of the accused are part of the bail application, yet no books of account were shown on behalf of the ED to refute the claim of the accused that the money has already been returned much prior to the registration of the ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report).” Also, if the accused had to launder the funds, why would the money be returned, the judge observed.

“The ED has selectively chosen only the credit entries, but conveniently did not consider the debit entries in the books of accounts. Only the inflow of money was shown before the court, completely ignoring the outflow thereof. This further puts a question mark as on the existence of proceeds of crime as claimed by the ED,” the judge said.

On ED’s claim that the accused received Rs 50 crore out of the proceeds of crime, the judge said that prima facie, there was nothing to show that it was the plot buyers’ money which had flowed into the hands of the accused.

“In the absence, thereof, it cannot be presumed that every amount received by the applicant on every monetary transaction being carried out by the accused dealt only with proceeds of crime,” the judge said.

According to the ED, the accused, along with others, diverted around Rs 250 crore received from various plot buyers at Brahma City/Krrish World in Gurugram into their own companies’ accounts through shell companies and parked the same abroad, thereby, generating and siphoning of proceeds of crime.