The Karnataka High Court on Friday warned that it would impose costs of ₹1 lakh on the Enforcement Directorate (ED) if it deems that the agency's appeal against the bail granted to Winzo co-founder Paavan Nanda is "unnecessary".

Justice S Rachaiah told counsel appearing for the ED that the agency would have to prove violation of the conditions of bail, or that there was an active attempt by Nanda to suppress the facts of the case.

"Without these two, if I find this is as an unnecessary challenge I will impose ₹1 lakh cost," the judge said.

The next hearing is scheduled for April 23.

In February this year, a Bengaluru sessions court granted bail to Nanda in the money-laundering case registered against him by the ED.

The ED case against Nanda arose from predicate offences reflected in first information reports (FIRs) registered in Bengaluru, Rajasthan and Delhi. The agency has alleged that Winzo’s gaming operations involved algorithmic manipulation and use of BOTs, resulting in alleged wrongful gains of ₹177 crore. It has further alleged diversion of funds to overseas subsidiaries and laundering of proceeds of crime through cloud-based infrastructure hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The ED also claimed identity misuse of a large number of users and transnational fund flows amounting to approximately USD 55 million.

Nanda denied the allegations, asserted full cooperation with the investigation and challenged the legality of the search and seizure operations conducted by the agency.