VIJAY AGRAWAL Vs. DIRECTORATE OF ENFORCEMEN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Briefly stated, the case of the directorate of enforcement is that Naresh Jain along with his brother Bimal Jain and other accomplices hatched a criminal conspiracy to cause loss to the exchequer and banks by indulging in illegal foreign exchange transactions on the basis of forged/ fabricated documents. It was alleged that for the furtherance of conspiracy, documents like identity proof, birth and education certificate, voter ID, PAN Card and signatures were Forged/fabricated to incorporate entities, operating bank accounts, facilitating bogus/over-invoiced/ under-invoiced import and export transactions and rotation of the funds through web of shell companies to cause undue benefit to the parties involved and loss to the exchequer and banks. It has been alleged the Naresh Jain also facilitated parking of funds abroad by Indian nationals through his international Hawala transaction structure created in India and in various other jurisdictions. Investigation revealed that Naresh Jain incorporated and operated 450 Indian entities and 104 foreign entities. These entities were incorporated by using original identity proofs and documents of dummy shareholders and directors as well as by fabricating identity proofs and documents of these shareholders and directors. During the search 14 digital keys for operation of foreign bank accounts and other incriminating documents and data were seized from the secret office of Naresh Jain at 361, Vardhman Grand Plaza, Sector-3, Rohini, Delhi. It has been alleged that Naresh Jain and his accomplices were operating around 337 accounts in foreign banks in Dubai, Hongkong and Singapore in respect of 104 shell firms/ companies. The ED has alleged that during the investigation conducted so far, out of 450 shell companies, 603 bank accounts of 311 companies have been examined and it has been gathered that Naresh Jain and his accomplices (including the present petitioner) rotated funds approximately to the tune of Rs.96,000.00 Crores for providing accommodation entries of approximately Rs.18,679.00 Crores to 973 beneficiaries. It is pertinent to mention here that the ED has stated that the bail applications of Naresh Jain and Bimal Jain were dismissed by this court and SLP filed by Bimal Kumar Jain before Hon'ble Supreme court has also been dismissed.

(2.) During the course of further investigation, the role of the present petitioner has been found as under:

(3.) Mr. Zoheb Hossain has further submitted that the conduct of the petitioner has also not remained clean during the investigation and he deliberately suppressed certain facts including opening of new bank account.