Delhi High Court denies bail to former Reliance Power CFO in money laundering case

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday denied bail to former Reliance Power Limited’s Chief Financial Officer Ashok Kumar Pal in a money laundering case concerning a false bank guarantee of over ₹68 crore to participate in a tender floated by Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI)..The vacation bench of Justice Madhu Jain stated that though the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) evidence will be examined during trial, it cannot be entirely disregarded while deciding on bail."Having regard to the nature of the allegations and the material relied upon by the Directorate of Enforcement, including statements recorded under Section 50 of the PMLA, documentary material and electronic communications collected during investigation, this Court is unable to record satisfaction that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the Applicant is not guilty of the offence alleged. The twin conditions prescribed under Section 45 of the PMLA are, therefore, not satisfied at this stage," the Court stated..The case pertains to a June 2024 SECI tender for setting up a 1,000 megawatt Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project. For participating in the tender, Reliance Power entered into an agreement with a company called Biswal Tradelink to arrange for a bank guarantee.By way of a show cause notice issued in September 2024, SECI informed Reliance Power that the bank guarantee was found to be false. SECI later barred Reliance Power and its subsidiary, Reliance NU BESS Limited, from participating in its tenders for three years.The High Court subsequently stayed the debarment communication on November 26, 2024..Pal filed a complaint before the Economic Offences Wing against Biswal Tradelink, on the basis of which a first information report (FIR) was registered in Delhi.Thereafter, the ED initiated money laundering proceedings under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 to investigate the alleged false bank guarantee issue. Over the course of investigation, the ED named Pal as an accused in its supplementary prosecution complaint. He was arrested by ED in October 2025..Senior Advocate N Hariharan, appearing for Pal, submitted yesterday,“The man is in custody for more than 8 months which will have a bearing in the case. ED will say there are restrictions under section 45 PMLA. The Supreme Court in various cases has stated that Article 21 will take precedence over section 45."Seeking bail, he started that the trial has not commenced yet and is not likely to conclude i then near future, considering the fact that 72 witnesses are to be questioned and voluminous evidence is to be examined. Special Counsel for the ED Zoheb Hossain opposed the bail plea..Advocates Varun Chandiok, Alok Kumar, Sidharth Yadav and Arpit Mahendru also appeared for Pal.Panel Counsel Vivek Gurnani with Advocates Pranjal Tripathi, Kanishk Maurya and Tanvi Jain also represented the ED. .[Read judgment]