Delhi court grants bail to former Unitech promoters Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra in PMLA case

A Delhi court on Friday granted bail to former Unitech promoters Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra in a case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). .Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Dheeraj More of the Patiala House Court granted bail to Chandras after noting that they were arrested in the predicate offence in 2017 and have languished in jail for the last 2.5 years in the PMLA case even though the trial in the case is yet to commence.“The maximum punishment in this case is 7 years and they have already undergone substantial part of the maximum punishment that can be awarded to them in this case. There are 71 accused persons, 121 witnesses and lakhs of supporting documents in the complaint. Considering the humongous set of documents, enormous prosecution witnesses and huge number of accused persons coupled with the fact that the trial in this case has not yet commenced despite passage of more than 2 years, there is no hesitation to record that its trial may go beyond 7 years i.e. even more than maximum punishment of this case,” the Court noted.It said that the purpose of pre-trial detention can never be punitive and detention before being pronounced guilty of an offence should not become punishment without trial..Chandras were booked by Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) after homebuyers filed complaints that they have been cheated of their money.Later, the ED registered a money laundering case on allegations that the money which had been collected from the flat buyers, was siphoned off.Chandra told the Court that despite being in custody, large number of Unitech flats were delivered between 2017 and 2020. It was stated that around ₹850 crores was deposited in the Supreme Court out of which large sums were returned to homebuyers. .Advocates Arshdeep Singh Khurana, Neha Nagpal, Nikunj Mahajan, Vishal Gosain and Anuroop Chakravarti appeared for Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra. ED was represented by Special Public Prosecutors NK Matta and Arun Khatri as well as advocates Aaditya Raj Sharma and Rohit Verma.