New Delhi: A special PMLA court in Mumbai on Wednesday granted bail to former Yes Bank CEO Rana Kapoor in a money laundering case, noting that he had “already served 73 per cent of his sentence, while the case against him stood even a millimeter”. had not progressed”.
Kapoor was the first Arrested He was indicted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in March 2020 on charges of money laundering under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and later in other loan fraud cases being probed by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The minimum punishment for money laundering imposed under the PMLA is three years, which may extend to seven years.
During the hearing, the court pulled up the investigating agencies for their “selective” arrest of Kapoor and their callous attitude towards the investigation.
Special Judge MG Deshpande, while allowing Kapoor’s bail plea, said, “The ED only vehemently opposes bail applications, but never takes any active step in the trial proceedings.” Crime too.
The ED is probing money laundering charges against the Yes Bank founder in connection with six loans worth Rs 200 crore, which the bank had given to realty company HDIL through Mack Star Marketing Pvt Ltd.
Kapoor had moved the bail application stating that no charge sheet was filed by the CBI in a predicate offense (an offense which is a component of a more serious offence) and he was not named in the FIR relating to the offence.
“The applicant (Kapoor) has been subjected to undue imprisonment without trial for two years, two months and three days only because of the alleged seriousness, magnitude and varied nature of the economic offences,” the judge said. “It’s all shocking.”
Commenting on the role of the CBI, the judge noted that even after court’s request to know the status of its investigation against Kapoor, there was only one communication from the agency which stated that “investigation is still pending”. .
“Whether it is legally permissible to allow the CBI to consume seven years (the ‘outer limit of punishment’) for filing the final report without any progress report and till then the under-trial prisoner’s right to a speedy trial has been suspended? This is serious,” the court said.
The special judge said that since the charge sheet in the predicate offense had not been filed, there was no FIR against Kapoor and it was a fit case for grant of bail.
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ED not sending cases to PMLA court’
The court noted that “in this long period of wrongful confinement, both the CBI and the ED have never taken care to follow the true spirit of Section 44(1)(c) of the PML Act”.
Under Section 44(1)(c) of the Act, the money laundering case and the “predicate” offense must be tried “simultaneously” but separately by the special PMLA court.
The ED needs to transfer the “committed” or predicate offense to the special court, otherwise the trial cannot begin.
“The manner in which the ED is dealing with the matter and (it) was not aware of the said mandate until repeatedly reinforced by the court to direct it. If this continues, the trial will never begin and its conclusion will be just a dream.
“On the contrary, instead of scrupulously respecting and abiding by the mandate of Section 44(1)(c), the ED has distorted the same.”
The court further said that without committing the offence, the ED was filing “draft charges” while “pretending that it was ready for trial, when it was not so”.
The judge said that the ED is effectively not filing a regular charge sheet, but is filing a draft charge for “reasons best known to them”.
The court referred to more than 11 other PMLA cases where the accused were undertrial prisoners and no proactive steps were taken by the ED to take the trial forward.
‘Violation of accused’s right to fair trial’
The special court said that this is not the first time that such an incident (delayed investigation and charge sheet) has happened.
There was bail in Wadhawan Brothers case given This was pointed out by the Bombay High Court as the ED failing to file the charge sheet in time.
The court said that in the absence of a “real and notable” period of investigation, the argument that the investigation is still ongoing cannot be accepted.
It added, “If the Court accepts such modus operandi of both the agencies in awarding the applicant with undue imprisonment to an indefinite extent, it would be like imposing a premium on such illegalities.”
It further acknowledged that the trial in the PMLA case is “extraordinarily vast, vast” because of the huge amount of evidence required to be examined, adding that agencies like the ED and the CBI have to be “careful, vigilant and Must be punctual”. in the earliest possible time frame.
The judge said that detention pending trial without a charge sheet is a violation of the right of the accused to a fair trial.
The court also observed that “it is high time to seriously consider (about) this situation, as maximum PMLA cases are in the designated Special Court at Mumbai and since the establishment of this designated Special PMLA Court, none of them has also not reached a conclusion”.
“If the ED, who is under legal compulsion but is not complying in true spirit of Section 44(1)(c) of the PML Act, then who will comply?” the court asked.
In recent times, the ED has emerged as a powerful agency against financial crime, handling high-profile cases with far-reaching political and legal ramifications. Over the years, the agency has looked into cases involving Congress leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, AAP leader Satyendar Jain, Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut, among others.
The ED’s criticism of the special PMLA court also comes at a time when the Supreme Court has upheld Its powers under the PMLA relating to arrest, attachment of property involved in money laundering, search and seizure were challenged by several petitioners.
Akshat Jain is a student of National Law University, Delhi and interns with ThePrint.
(Editing by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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