TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (10) TMI 154
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....ar (the Applicant), Md. Enamul Haque, Sh. Bhuvan Bhaskar s/o Sh. Satish Kumar and Others. The PE revealed that cattle smuggling was happening from India to Bangladesh by paying illegal gratification to BSF personnel deputed on the Border, during 19.12.2015 to 22.04.2017. The CBI alleged that Md. Enamul Haque used to pay Rs. 2000/- per cattle to BSF officials and Rs. 500 to Customs Officials aside from the 10% of the auction price from successful bidders like Enamul Haque. 4. The CBI, after completion of PE, registered a RC No. RC0102020A0019, dated 21.09.2020 for offences under section 120B IPC and Sections 7, 11, & 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (PC Act), against the following accused persons: 1. Sh. Satish Kumar (Applicant herein) 2. Md. Enamul Haque 3. Md. Anarul SK 4. Md. Golam Mustafa 5. Sh. Sudipto Roy Chowdhary 6. Sh. George Manjooran [the then DIG, BSF] and other officials if BSF and Indian Customs and unknown others. 5. Thereafter, the CBI filed the Chargesheet under Section 173 of Cr.P.C., 1973 before the Special Judge, CBI, Asansol, Paschim Bardhaman, West Bengal on 06.02.2021 against the accused p....
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....ttle, is deposited with the concerned customs office. The Customs department then tallies and initiate process of auction of seized cattle whereby the highest bidder is handed over the seized cattle. The role of BSF is limited to the seizure of the cattle, preparation of seizure memos, and transfer of custody of the seized cattle to the Customs Department. 11. The Applicant's role is alleged to be that he had a direct nexus with the main accused Md. Enamul Haque, and owing to this nexus the Applicant had given free access to the accused, of Border out Posts (BOPs) of the BSF Battalion under his command, during 2015-2017. It is alleged that the Applicant accepted bribe from the main accused Md. Enamul Haque into the joint accounts of his wife Tania Sanyal and father-in-law, Mr. Badal Krishna Sanyal, who are also accused persons in the FIR. 12. It is submitted that the role of the Applicant as a BSF officials and the BSF as a whole ended after the preparation of seizure memos and handing-over of the custody of seized cattle to the Customs Department. The allegations leveled by the ED and CBI are false, baseless, and without any prima facie evidence, and in the absence of any pr....
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....or oral evidence. The Applicant has only played a supervisory role being the Commandant of the Battalion. 17. The allegation that the Applicant was paid bribe by Md. Enamul Haque through his staff, Mr. Manoj Sana, who was maintaining a diary of cash deposits in the name of the Applicant, is unsubstantiated and no statement of Mr. Manoj Sana has been recorded till date either by ED or the CBI to substantiate the allegation pertaining to the alleged diary. Moreover, mere appearance of the Applicant's name in the said Diary cannot be the basis to impute criminal conspiracy, especially when he does not even know Mr. Manoj Sana. In this regard reliance has been placed on CBI vs. V.C. Shukla, (1998) 3 SCC 410. 18. It is submitted that the Applicant has no relation with the alleged Proceeds of Crime, for the amount of Rs. 12.80 Crores was deposited his father-in-law deposited the said money under IDS and there is no evidence that the same formed part of the proceeds of crime. 19. It is submitted that "bail is the rule and jail is exception", and that the Applicant has satisfied the twin conditions for the grant of Bail under S.45 of PMLA and has made out reasonable grounds that t....
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....d others, wherein it was mentioned that Enamul Haque had arranged to deposit around Rs. 12.8 crores in cash into the joint bank account of Badal Krishna Sanyal and Mrs. Tania Sanyal through his employee/handler Manoj Sana, staff of Enamul Haque. 26. The Applicant was summoned by the ED for his appearance on 12.04.2022 and his statement under section 40 PMLA was recorded on 21.04.2022 and 22.03.2022. However, the Applicant did not cooperate with investigation and gave evasive replies and/or intentionally and deliberately did not disclose facts before the Investigating Agency, more specifically with respect to cash deposit of Rs. 12.80 crores in the joint bank account of his wife and father-in-law, his relation with co-accused Md. Enamul Haque, his son's (namely Bhaskar Bhuvan) employment in Haque group of Companies for 6 months, relation with three promoters of JHM group of Companies, relation with Manoj Sana, relation with Biswajit Malakar, Rajan Poddar, CA and proceed of crime (PoC) received for giving favour in the scheduled offence of cattle smuggling. 27. In regards to the role of the Applicant, it is submitted by the Respondent that during the course of investigation....
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....ent of India, AIROnLine 2020 Ori 281, P. Anand vs. Assistant Director, Directorate of Enforcement, MANU/TN/8778/2022, Pooja Singhal vs. Directorate of Enforcement, Government of India, MANU/JH/1019/2022, Gautam Thapar vs. Directorate of Enforcement, Bail Appl. No. 4185/2021, Ahmed A.R. Buhari vs. The Assistant Director, Directorate of Enforcement, Crl. O.P. No. 6205/2022, State of Gujarat vs. Mohanlal Jitamalji Porwal & Anr., AIR 1987 SC 1321, Nimmagadda Prasad vs. Central Bureau of Investigation, AIR 2013 SC 2821, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy vs. Central Bureau of Investigation, 2013 Cri. L.J. 2734, State of Bihar & Anr. vs. Amit Kumar @ Bacha Rai, AIR 2017 SC 2487, Rohit Tondon vs. Enforcement of Directorate, AIR 2017 SC 5309, Himanshu Chandravasan Desai &Ors. vs. State of Gujarat, MANU/SC/1750/2005, Dr. Vinod Bhandari vs. State of M.P., 2015 Cri. L.J. 1547, Surya Kirti Thapar &Anr. vs, State of NCT of Delhi, Bail Appl. No. 334/2014, Central Bureau of Investigation vs. Ramendu Chattopadhyay, AIR OnLine 2019 SC 1516, Sunil Dahiya vs. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi), MANU/DE/2797/2016, Mukesh Kumar Singh vs. The State, Bail Appl. No. 2382/2022, Ajay Kumar vs. State (NCT of Delhi),Bail Appl....
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....13) 7 SCC 466, and Tarun Kumar v. Assistant Director, Directorate of Enforcement, 2023 SCC OnLine SC 1486. 38. The Bail Application under Section 45 of PMLA is to be decided by making reference to special nature of the offence of money laundering. In Saumya Chaurasia v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2023 SCC OnLine SC 1674, the Hon'ble Supreme Court observed that Section 45 (1) of PMLA shows that the accused is required to cross the threshold of the twin conditions mentioned therein: (a) public prosecutor shall be given an opportunity to oppose the application for release of the accused; and (b) the Court should be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of such offence and is not likely to commit any offence while on bail at the time of seeking bail. 39. In Gautam Kundu v. Directorate of Enforcement (Prevention of Money-Laundering Act), Government of India, Through Manoj Kumar, Assistant Director, AIR 2016 SC 106, the Hon'ble Supreme Court observed that the twin conditions under Section 45 PMLA are mandatory and need to be complied with and the provision of Section 45 will have an overriding effect on the provi....
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....e of Section 207 of Cr.P.C. 1973. Further, seeing the volume of pages in the Chargesheet and some of it being in Bengali and thus, require translation, were going to be contributing factors in the period of incarceration, and thus, co-accused Sh. Anubrata Mondal was admitted to bail. 44. In the present case, the allegations are that the Applicant was a party to cattle-smuggling in so much as he facilitated the same for money considerations. The investigations qua the Petitioner are already complete as the Complaint has been filed in the Court. Pertinently, the Applicant was named only in First Supplementary Charge Sheet. He is not a flight risk, considering his position of being a Commandant in the BSF and that he has deep roots in the Society. The evidence being essentially documentary, is not likely to be tampered or the witnesses influenced. 45. Applicant has been in judicial custody from 22.04.2022 i.e. for about two and a half years. The documents involved in the present case are voluminous and the trial may take a long time to get concluded as was observed in Anubrata Mondal (Supra), while granting the Bail to the co-accused. 46. Considering the above mentioned facts....