SIDHANT GUPTA Vs. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who was arrested and remanded to judicial custody on 13/6/2022 for the alleged offences punishable under Ss. 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 in F.No.ECIR/CEZO-I/14/2017 pending on the file of the respondent, seeks bail.

(2.) The FIR has been registered in F.No.ECIR/CEZO-I/14/2017 with the allegation that 19 firms fraudulently opened current accounts in Punjab National Bank, Mint Street, Chennai. During the year 2015, the unknown public servants of the bank entered into criminal conspiracy with 19 account holders and abused their official position and in furtherance to the criminal conspiracy, they were sending foreign exchange to Hong Kong without genuine business transactions; that the modus operandi was that the remittances from various banks to their accounts by way of RTGSs and presented to make request, issued by foreign suppliers for 100% advance remittances. Each remittance amount was kept in such a way that it could not exceed the threshold limit of 1,00,000 USD in order to circumvent the regulatory requirements and applicability of RBI. There were around 700 advance remittances made for the import through various current accounts opened during the period from January 2015 to May 2015 to the tune of INR 424.58 Crores. All the advance remittances were routed through Nostro account maintained with HSBC, New York. The Bank verified the addresses of the said account holders on the advice of the Concurrent Auditors and found that none of the units were functioning in the available addresses. Thus, it is a case of money laundering through shell companies and there has been loss of foreign exchange to the tune of INR 424.58 Crores.

(3.) Further, it is alleged that the 19 bank accounts of Punjab National Bank, carried out 772 transactions and sent foreign exchange to the extent of USD 70871531.02/- equivant to INR 449,78,62,434/-outside India in the guise of advance import remittance. Despite, no import had taken place and the majority of the amount got diverted to Hong Kong and United Arab Emirates. As far as the petitioner is concerned, he had traveled to Hong Kong and incorporated several entities along with the bank accounts.