TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (3) TMI 1274
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....ection 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Section 7 (C) read with Section 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. As per the said F.I.R., EOW, Bhopal, received note sheet from Chief Secretary, Madhya Pradesh, regarding unauthorized access in 3 Tenders of Madhya Pradesh Water Corporation on Madhya Pradesh e- Procurement Portal being run by MPSEDC. The facts were verified and it was found that MP e-Procurement Portal is managed by MPSEDC and M/S. Antares Systems Limited, Bangalore and M/S. Tata Consultancy Services (ICS) were given contract for a period of five years for the maintenance and operation of the said portal. These two companies along with MPSEDC were accountable for the security of e-Procurement Portal. It was found in preliminary enquiry that e-Tender Nos.91, 93 and 94 for total amount of Rs. 1769.00 Crores of Madhya Pradesh Water Corporation were tampered and changed to price bid of M/S. GVPR Engineers Limited (Tender No.91), M/S The Indian Hume Pipe Company Limited (Tender No.93) and M/S JMC Project India Limited (Tender No.94) to make them the lowest bidders. Similarly, various tenders of different Government Departments were tampered and changed to pr....
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.... offence of money laundering under Section 3 of the P.M.L. Act, punishable under Section 4 of the P.M.L. Act appears to have been made out. Heard Sri S.Niranjan Reddy, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner, assisted by Sri N.Jeevan Kumar and Sri S.V.Raju, learned AdditionaJ Solicitor General of Supreme Court, for the 1st respondent, assisted by Sri B.Narasimha Sharma, learned Standing Counsel for the Enforcement Directorate and perused the record. Learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner would submit that the petitioner is apprehending that she would be arrested by the 1st respondent in respect of the investigation in said E.C.I.R. It is submitted that the petitioner is a person with no criminal antecedents and impeccable character and belongs to a respectable family having deep roots in the society. It is also submitted that the petitioner is being investigated by the Directorate of Enforcement, Hyderabad, in relation to the complaint in ECIR/HYZO/36/2020. The petitioner has been served with summons, dated 27.01.2021 seeking her appearance on 29.01.2021 purporting that her presence is required for investigation Of offences under the P.M.L. Act. It is....
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....he business of the Company and, therefore, there is absolutely no occasion for the petitioner to meddle with the records, which are already in the custody of the 1st respondent and Economic Offences Wing of Police have already filed charge sheet in Bhopal. It is also submitted that on the same set of facts, when Police at Bhopal have investigated and filed Final Report under Section 173 of Cr.P.C., conducting investigation into the same set of facts once again by the 1st respondent is contrary to the Rule of Law as recently pronounced by the Bombay High Court. . It is further submitted that the 1st respondent being aware of the fact that the petitioner is not involved in the day-to-day activities of the said companies i.e., (1) M/S. DRM Composites LLP, (2) M/S. River Volt Hydro LLP) that too only from 2019, the 1st respondent in order to bring pressure on the husband of the petitioner, who is in judicial remand, and to play mind game on the petitioner and her husband, has issued the present summons only to harass the petitioner. It is also submitted that the petitioner has been falsely implicated in the above said case and she has nothing to do with the above said alleged offence. ....
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....by the State Government of Madhya Pradesh. As per the said F.I.R. registered by EOW, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, many bidders aspiring to secure allocation of the projects have conspired with one M/S. Osmo IT Solutions, Bhopal and tampered the e-tenders to suit their bid and gained undue benefits worth thousands of Crores by being allocated various irrigation and other projects being undertaken by Madhya Pradesh State Government. The suspected were charged under Section 120-B of I.P.C. read with Sections 420 and 471 of I.P.C. Since the predicate agency have charged the suspected under the sections forming scheduled offences in terms of Section 2 (y) of the P.M.L. Act., and also since prima facie there appears large scale money laundering involved in the said issue, investigation under the P.M.L. Act has been initiated. It is further submitted that the present application seeking anticipatory bail under Section 438 of Cr.P.C. is liable to be dismissed as it does not make out any valid grounds for apprehension of arrest. In any event, there can be no apprehension of arrest unless and until reasons to believe are formed on the basis of material in the possession of the Directorate of Enfo....
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....er submitted that preliminary investigation by the police has established that various e-tenders were illegally accessed and bids of a few companies were manipulated to illegally make them Ll. M/S. Mantena Group of Companies, Hyderabad, are suspected to be a major beneficiary of this e-tender scam. As per the FOW charge sheet, a joint venture Of the Mantena Group known as M/S Max Mantena Micro JV is a direct beneficiary of a tampered e-tender No. 10030 worth Rs. 1020 Crore. Although EOW, Bhopal has filed first charge sheet on 04.07.2019, its investigation is not complete and is still going on. The Enforcement Directorate, which is tasked with tracing the proceeds of crime and investigating money laundering, is carrying out investigation into the entire illegal profits generated through this e-tender scam over the last few years. It is also submitted that in order to gather evidence, a search operation was conducted under the provisions of Section 17 (I) of the P.M.L. Act. Accordingly, 18 premises were searched including the residences of the promoters and offices of M/S Mantena Constructions Limited, M/S. Anteras Private Limited, M/S Osmo IT Solutions Private Limited, M/S. Arni Inf....
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....ances where the charges against the accused are claimed to be frivolous or groundless. The petitioner was already questioned and her statement was recorded on and she was not arrested. Further recording of her statement is necessary. It is necessary to confront her with multiple financial transactions about which only she is aware and is having confidential information. Therefore, it is not a fit case for pre-arrest bail. The present petition has been filed as a dilatory tactic and to avoid the lawful investigation. It is also submitted that in P.Chidambaram v. Directorate of Enforcement(2019) 9 SCC 24, the Apex Court rejected the anticipatory bail application by applying the provisions under Section 45 (1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. It is further submitted that taking note of huge magnitude of conspiracy angle and possible involvement Of the petitioner and pending interrogation of the petitioner, granting any sort of relief including anticipatory bail to the petitioner would disable the 1st respondent from proceeding to trace the proceeds of crime and attaching it provisionally under Section 5 (1) of the P.M.L. Act, which is the basic objective of the Act. Economic....
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.... P.M.L. Act is not illegal and not without jurisdiction. Thus, the fact that the petitioner is not summoned by EOW is no ground to seek anticipatory bail. Further, since the object of the investigation of E.D. and EOW are different, the material evidence collected by them cannot exactly the same. It is further submitted that Mr. Mantena Srinivasa Raju, has hatched a well planned criminal conspiracy of tampering the e-tenders called by Madhya Pradesh State Government to suit his bids and to influence senior government officials by paying bribes to them in cash and kind. In the process he has expotentially increased his work order profile in the last 2-3 years. E.D. is in possession of material evidence and on the basis of its investigation done so far, E.D. had arrested Mr.Srinivas Raju Mantena and his associate Mr.Aditya Tripathi on 19.01.2021 and presently both of them are in E.D. custody till 03.02.201. E.D. is a investigating agency working under the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, which does financial investigations of large scale economic frauds and is well known for professional investigative work. It is also submitted that in the present case the petitioner is seek....
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....framed against him, he may still not appear before the court at all even during the trial. 20. Section 438 Cr.P.C. contemplates arrest at the stage of investigation and provides a mechanism for an accused to be released on bail should he be arrested during the period of investigation. Once the investigation makes out a case against him and he is included as an accused in the charge-sheet, the accused has to surrender to the custody of the Court and pray for regular bail. On the strength of an order granting anticipatory bail, an accused against whom charge has been framed, cannot avoid appearing before the trial Court." The first objection of the 1st respondent is that the petition for pre-arrest bail cannot be filed in High Court without approaching the Special Court. With regard to the jurisdiction of this Court, in Barun Chandra Thakur v. Central Bureau of Investigation (2018) 12 SCC 119 the Apex Court held as under: In fact, it can be said that there was a trial by media, therefore, when the private respondents have directly approached the High Court for grant of anticipatory/ interim bail under Section 438 of the Code, that too when the High Court has c....
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....with possession of the proceeds of crime, which he now projects as being untainted. Mr X applies for bail to the Special Court/ High Court. Despite the fact that Mr X is not involved in the money laundering offence, but only in the scheduled offence, by virtue of the fact that the two sets of offences are being tried together, Mr X would be denied bail because the money laundering offence is being tried along with the scheduled offence, for which Mr Y alone is being prosecuted. This illustration would show that a person who may have nothing to do with the offence of money laundering may yet be denied bail, because of the twin conditions that have to be satisfied under Section 45(1) of the 2002 Act. Also, Mr A may well be prosecuted for an offence which falls within Part A of the Schedule, but which does not involve money laundering. Such offences would be liable to be tried under the Code of Criminal Procedure, and despite the fact that it may be the very same Part A scheduled offence given in the illustration above, the fact that no prosecution for money laundering along with the said offence is launched, would enable Mr A to get bail without the rigorous conditions contained in S....
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....s from cumulative perusal of the judgments cited on either side including the one rendered by the Constitution Bench of this Court, it could be deduced that the basic jurisprudence relating to bail remains the same inasmuch as the grant of bail is the rule and refusal is the exception so as to ensure that the accused has the opportunity of securing fair trial. However, while considering the same the gravity of the offence is an aspect which is required to be kept in view by the Court. The gravity for the said purpose will have to be gathered from the facts and circumstances arising in each case. Keeping in view the consequences that would befall on the society in cases of financial irregularities, it has been held that even economic offences would fall under the category of "grave offence" and in such circumstance while considering the application for bail in such matters, the Court will have to deal with the same, being sensitive to the nature of allegation made against the accused. One of the circumstances to consider the gravity of the offence is also the term of sentence that is prescribed for the offence the accused is alleged to have committed. Such consideration with regard ....
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.... which this distinction bears with the grant or refusal of bail is that in cases falling under Section 437, there is some concrete data on the basis of which it is possible to show that there appear to be reasonable grounds for believing that the applicant has been guilty of an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life. In cases falling under Section 438 that stage is still to arrive and, in the generality of cases thereunder, it would be premature and indeed difficult to predicate that there are or are not reasonable grounds for so believing. The foundation of the belief spoken of in Section 437(1), by reason of which the court cannot release the applicant on bail is, normally, the credibility of the allegations contained in the first information report. In the majority of cases falling under Section 438, that data will be lacking for forming the requisite belief. If at all the conditions mentioned in Section 437 are to be read into the provisions of Section 438, the transplantation shall have to be done without amputation. That is to say, on the reasoning of the High Court, Section 438(1) shall have to be read as containing the clause that the applicant "shall not" b....
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....tory bail before the Court as per law, as it deals with his personal liberty, which is a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution of India." The application for anticipatory bail in the case of P.Chidambaram (7 supra) was rejected on merits of the allegations and other material. It is trite law that in case of economic offences, which are having an impact on the society, the Court must be very slow in exercising the discretion under Section 438 of Cr.P C. But on perusal of the factual matrix of the present case, prima facie, there is no material to come to the conclusion that the act of the petitioner is having an impact on the financial status of the Country and in that light the ratio laid down in P.Chidambaram's case (7 supra) is not applicable to the facts of the present case. Therefore, looking into the totality of the circumstances, this Court is of the considered opinion that the petitioner is entitled for anticipatory bail. Accordingly, the Criminal Petition is allowed and the petitioner is granted anticipatory bail on the following terms and condi tions: (i) The petitioner is directed to surrender before the Assistant Director, Enforcement ....