Bike Bot scam: SC grants pre-arrest bail to Bhasin group director in money laundering case

PTI, Mar 21, 2024, 8:22 PM IST

The Supreme Court on Thursday granted anticipatory bail to Satinder Singh Bhasin, a director of Bhasin group of companies, in a money laundering case related to the alleged Rs 3,500-crore Bike Bot scam.

A Noida-registered company had in 2018 come out with a multi-level marketing scheme ‘Bike Bot’ and lured the investors with a promise of large returns on their investments in motorcycles which were supposed to be used as two-wheeler taxis.

A bench comprising justices M M Sundresh and S V N Bhatti granted pre-arrest bail to Bhasin after taking note of the submissions of his lawyer Vijay Aggarwal.

It was alleged that Bhasin was one of the key decision-makers for property purchase and development, out of the money fraudulently extracted from several investors in the garb of investment.

It was also alleged that this money was invested in Bhasin’s Grand Venice Mall.

Aggarwal said the accused was consciously not arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) during the course of investigation and was apprehending his arrest not at the behest of the investigating agency but by the court, as even after granting anticipatory bail to co-accused in the same case, the anticipatory bail of his client was dismissed.

The lawyer said the ED itself did not oppose the anticipatory bail before the high court when he represented the cause of the client there and even the probe agency merely sought imposition of stringent conditions on Bhasin.

The appeal was filed by Bhasin against the February 13 order of the Allahabad High Court declining his plea for anticipatory bail.