Delhi HC grants bail to lawyer Rohit Tandon

The Delhi High Court today granted bail to lawyer Rohit Tandon who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate after his law firm’s Greater Kailash office was raided post demonitization..Tandon was arrested on charges of illegally converting old currency notes in connivance with some bank officials. Old and new currency notes were also seized from the lawyer’s office..Tandon’s bail application was previously rejected by the Delhi High Court as well as the Supreme Court. He has been in custody since December 2016 but was given an interim bail in August last year when his mother was undergoing surgery..Appearing for Tandon, Senior Advocates Arvind Nigam and Sudhir Nandrajog argued that as per the notification issued by the Government on 8th November 2016, a deposit of demonetized currency in one’s own account was not an offence much less a scheduled offence..It was further argued that the allegation against Tandon that he got money deposited in the accounts of different persons who were given 35% commission, is also not an offence under the IPC..It was stated that since no scheduled offence had taken place, there could be no laundering of the money thereof..It was also contended that when the Supreme Court rejected Tandon’s bail application, the twin conditions as required under Section 45 of the PMLA had not been set aside as unconstitutional..Since the Supreme Court in November 2017, has held that Section 45(1) of the PMLA, insofar as it imposes two further conditions for release on bail, to be unconstitutional, the Court should now consider Tandon’s bail..It was further submitted that the apprehension that Rohit Tandon is a man of influence and would thus, tamper with the evidence was wholly unfounded as the entire evidence is documentary in nature..Agreeing with the contentions of Tandon’s lawyers, the Single Judge Bench of Justice Mukta Gupta directed that he along with one Raj Kumar Goel, be released on bail after furnishing a personal bond of Rs. 5 lakh each..It is also directed that the petitioners (Tandon and Goel) cannot leave the country without prior permission of the Trial Court..Read Judgment: