A Delhi court today granted bail to two directors of a private firm, arrested in a money- laundering case relating to the alleged cheating of several banks to the tune of Rs 2,240 crore.
Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma granted relief to the directors of Surya Vinayak Industries Limited -- Sanjay Jain and Rajiv Jain, saying no purpose will be served by keeping them in further custody.
The court noted that both the accused were already granted bail in a case filed by the CBI in the matter, based on which the ED has registered the present complaint.
While seeking bail for the accused persons, advocate Vijay Aggarwal said the Jains were not required for investigation any further and should be granted the relief.
He also cited a recent Supreme Court judgement striking down a stringent condition for securing bail in money laundering cases, besides the order by which the accused were granted bail in the CBI case.
Special public prosecutor Nitesh Rana had opposed the applications of the accused persons on behalf of the ED, saying they might hamper the ongoing investigation if the relief was granted.
He had said the quantum of proceeds of crime was very high and if granted bail, the accused could have divert the crime proceeds which are yet to be attached.
Some of the accused were yet to be arrested, the ED had said.
The accused were arrested on August 22, days after they were granted bail in a related CBI case.
The CBI had earlier told the court that the four accused used more than 100 shell companies for routing and diverting the bank funds. The firm and the shell companies had no genuine business transactions, it had alleged.
The company had allegedly diverted bank funds to the tune of Rs 2,240 crore, which resulted in loss to the consortium. Over Rs 300 crore of working capital was also allegedly moved to six companies set up abroad, the agency had said.
The case was registered by the CBI on the complaint of Punjab National Bank (PNB), alleging that the accused were using over 100 shell companies for routing and diverting the bank funds.
In its complaint, the PNB had alleged that the company had diverted bank funds to the tune of Rs 2,240 crore, which resulted in loss to the consortium. It had alleged that they had cheated 17 nationalised and four private banks. Later, ED also registered a case in this regard.
It was alleged that the 100 shell companies used by the accused for routing and diversion of bank funds had no genuine business transactions.
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