AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2023 (5) TMI 102
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.... of 2018 was filed by the petitioner - Anoop Bartaria, Director of World Trade Park Ltd. seeking a prayer to quash ECIR No.JPZO/01/2016 registered by the Jaipur Zonal Office of Enforcement Directorate, with further prayer against the respondents not to file any criminal complaint against the petitioner and not to take any coercive steps against the petitioner in respect of the said ECIR. The S.B. Criminal Writ Petition No. 757 of 2018 was filed by the petitioner - Anoop Bartaria, the Director, World Trade Park Ltd., and by M/s World Trade Park Ltd, a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956, seeking a prayer to quash and set aside the prosecution complaint in ECIR No.JPZO/01/2016. 3. As per the case of the petitioners, the petitioner- Anoop Bartaria is a leading and an awarded engineer/architect having an expertise in providing structural, architectural and design consultancy services and is also the Chairman and Managing Director of the World Trade Park Ltd., (Erstwhile M/s R.F. Properties & Trading Ltd.) a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956. The World Trade Park is one of the most sought-after real estate commercial properties situated at JLN Marg, Jaipur....
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....No. RCBD1/2016/E/0002 came to be registered by CBI, BS&FC, New Delhi, on 07.03.2016 against the said Bharat Bomb, his associates and the officials of three branches of the Syndicate Bank namely:- (1) Bapu Bazar, Udaipur (2) Malviya Nagar, Jaipur and (3) MI Road, Jaipur and certain other persons for the offences under the 120B, 420, 467, 468, 471, 472 and 474 of IPC and Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. It was alleged inter alia in the said FIR that during 2011-2015, to defraud the bank, the accused Bharat Bomb and his associates, in collusion with the officials of Syndicate Bank had misused the KYC documents of his clients/employees/family members as well as the existing customers of the Syndicate Bank to launder the money to the tune of about more than 18,000 crores which resulted in siphoning off Rs. 1055.79 crores. On 14.06.2016, the CBI, BS&FC filed charge-sheet before the Designated CBI Court, Jaipur against Mr. Bharat Bomb and some of the officers of the Syndicate Bank for the said offences. 8. Since some of the offences registered by the CBI in the said FIR were scheduled offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002....
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....n of any proceedings against the petitioners under the PMLA would be an abuse of process of law. 12. Elaborating his submissions on the allegations made against the petitioners, Mr. Hora submitted that the petitioners had only "buyer-seller" relationship with Mr. Bharat Bomb and his associates, and that the petitioners had no knowledge that the money received by them was the proceeds of crime. In this regard Mr. Hora has placed reliance on Nikesh Tarachand Shah Vs. Union of India and Another (2018) 11 SCC 1. He further submitted that though initially Mr. Bharat Bomb had requested the petitioners to book certain units in the name of M/s Raj Darbar Material Trading Pvt. Ltd., subsequently he had requested to execute sale deeds in the name of various associated entities, and therefore 34 separate registered sale deeds were executed by the petitioners, and respective amounts were received separately from each of the entity through demand drafts or RTGS, after refunding the amount received from M/s. Raj Darbar Material Trading Pvt. Ltd. In the said transactions, the petitioners had received the sale consideration of INR 76.72 crores and not INR 150 crores as alleged. 13. Mr. Hora ....
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.... was also revealed that the instalment of the said term loan to the extent of 1.50 crores were being paid by getting money from the fictitious firms controlled by Mr. Bharat Bomb and his associates. He also pointed out that the said current bank account opened by the petitioner- Anoop Bartaria with Syndicate bank on 30.09.2014 was exclusively operated for receiving tainted money from Mr. Bharat Bomb and no other transactions had taken place in the said account. The said account was also not declared in ITR of Anoop Bartaria filed for the assessment year 2015-16. 17. He submitted that the petitioner- Anoop Bartaria and his company had availed the loans for the project of World Trade Park from IDBI Bank/DHFL and UCO Bank, by mortgaging the units of the said project to the said banks. In line with terms of sanction, the World Trade Park Ltd. had opened an escrow account with IDBI Bank, in which all sale proceeds were to be deposited in that account only. However, Mr. Bartaria did not deposit any amount in the said escrow account and facilitated Mr. Bharat Bomb and his associates in parking the tainted money by opening the account in the Syndicate bank. In the request letters to IDB....
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....released on bail or on his own bond unless." 22. Subsequently, sub-section (1) was substituted by the Act 20 of 2005 w.e.f. 1.7.2005. "(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974), no person accused of an offence [under this Act] shall be released on bail or on his own bond unless..." 23. It may be noted that for removal of doubts, the Explanation to Section 45 was inserted by the Finance (No.2) Act, 2019 w.e.f. 1.8.2019 which reads as under: "Explanation- For the removal of doubts, it is clarified that the expression "Offences to be cognizable and non-bailable" shall mean and shall be deemed to have always meant that all the offences under this Act shall be cognizable offences and non-bailable offences notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974), and accordingly the officers authorized under this Act are empowered to arrest an accused without warrant, subject to the fulfilment of conditions under Section 19 and subject to the conditions enshrined under this Section". 24. From the afore-stated substitution of sub-section (1) and insertion of the Explan....
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....to indulge or knowingly assisted or knowingly is a party or is actually involved in one or more of the following processes or activities connected with proceeds of crime, namely: - (a) concealment; or (b) possession; or (c) acquisition; or (d) use; or (e) projecting as untainted property; or (f) claiming as untainted property, in any manner whatsoever; (ii) the process or activity connected with proceeds of crime is a continuing activity and continues till such time a person is directly or indirectly enjoying the proceeds of crime by its concealment or possession or acquisition or use or projecting it as untainted property or claiming it as untainted property in any manner whatsoever.]" 26. Section 2(u) defines what is "proceeds of crime" and Section 2(y) defines what is "Scheduled offence". As discernable from the record, the Prosecution complaint in ECIR was lodged against the petitioners and others under the PMLA by the ED, pursuant to the investigation carried out by the CBI in the FIR No. RCBD1/2016/E/0002 dated 07.03.2016 and the charge-sheet dated 14.06.2016 filed by the CBI against Bharat Bomb and others for ....
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....at too in the rarest of rare cases. In State of Haryana and Others vs. Bhajan Lal and Others (supra), this Court has laid down certain guidelines as to when the powers under Section 482 could be exercised either to prevent abuse the process of any court or otherwise to secure ends of justice. "102. In the backdrop of the interpretation of the various relevant provisions of the Code under Chapter XIV and of the principles of law enunciated by this Court in a series of decisions relating to the exercise of the extraordinary power under Article 226 or the inherent powers under Section 482 of the Code which we have extracted and reproduced above, we give the following categories of cases by way of illustration wherein such power could be exercised either to prevent abuse of the process of any court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice, though it may not be possible to lay down any precise, clearly defined and sufficiently channelised and inflexible guidelines or rigid formulae and to give an exhaustive list of myriad kinds of cases wherein such power should be exercised. (1) Where the allegations made in the first information report or the complaint, even if the....
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....l systems of the countries but also to their integrity and sovereignty. Hence any lenient view in dealing with such offences would be a travesty of justice. 30. Before parting, it may be noted that the petitioners in the SLPs while praying for the main relief of quashing the impugned judgment and order dated 21.02.2019 passed by the High Court, had sought interim relief seeking stay of the entire proceedings and the prosecution complaint no. 12/2018 in ECIR No.JPZO/01/2016 pending before the Special Judge (PMLA cases) Jaipur, without producing the said complaint along with the SLP paper books. The SLPs appear to have been filed on 8th March, 2019 declaring that all the defects have been cured, and thereafter on 25.03.2019, by way of an application seeking permission to file additional documents, the petitioners had produced the said Prosecution complaint no.12/2018 on record. Apart from the fact that after filing of the SLPs, no documents could have been filed without the permission of the Court, which in the instant case does not appear to have been sought for by the petitioners nor granted by the Court, the very practice of not filing the essential and relevant documents, more....