2023 (9) TMI 360

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.... Mrs. Anupama Sharma, Adv. Mr. Amar Jyoti Sharma, Adv. ORDER 1. The petitioner is before this Court assailing the order dated 5/21.03.2023 whereby the High Court of Jharkhand at Ranchi in Criminal Bail Application No.13289 of 2022 has rejected the prayer of the petitioner for bail. It is in that light, the petitioner is before this Court. 2. Heard Sh. Basant R., learned senior counsel for the petitioner, Sh. S.V. Raju, learned Additional Solicitor General for the respondent and perused the petition papers. 3. The instant bail application is filed by the petitioner in respect of the case registered in ECIR Case No. 04/2022 under Section 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 ('PMLA' for short). The said case is registe....

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....s only a part of such illgotten money and if the entire activities of illegal mining involving the petitioner, led by the said Pankaj Mishra is taken into consideration the amount would be to the extent of nearly 13 crores and as such the arrest of the appellant is justified and his custody is required to be continued. 6. In the light of the gist of the contentions noted above, we have perused the petition papers, but without adverting to much details at this stage since the basic facts required for considering an application for bail alone is to be noted without effecting the main contentions of the parties to be put forth during trial. The basic allegation as made against the petitioner as noted is regarding the illegal activity during....

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.... event, would be looked at during the course of the trial. 8. Further, though the learned Additional Solicitor General has contended that the bail application filed by the main accused Pankaj Mishra has been dismissed by this Court on 26.04.2023 in Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No.4682 of 2023, it is seen that the application filed has in fact been withdrawn with liberty to file an application for interim bail on medical ground and also to file afresh bail application after six months. Be that as it may, in the instant facts, the nature of the allegation in the present proceedings has been taken note. In that circumstance, it is seen that the petitioner was arrested on 05.08.2022 and he has spent a little over one year of incarcerati....