Economic offenders have huge proceeds of crime, may use it to win over witnesses: Allahabad High Court denies anticipatory bail to accused

Economic offenders are only concerned about personal gain at the cost of “irreparable” loss to the society, the Allahabad High Court observed on Thursday as it rejected the anticipatory bail plea of a man accused in a money laundering case [Pankaj Grover v. Directorate of Enforcement]. .Justice Chandra Dhari Singh noted that such offenders commit crime to get “more and more” money and are not concerned about society which made them “a human being” and provided them with status, position, respect and reputation.“They are in possession of large amount of proceed of crime. When a person has money earned by honesty and labour, they think again in spending the money but when money is obtained by corrupt means, such person may not have any problem spending. A criminal of economic offences has larger amount of proceed of crime, he may use it and affect the investigation and win over witnesses,” the Court said..The Court was acting on the plea by one Pankaj Grover, a former “sleeping” director of M/s Surgicoin Medequip Pvt. Ltd. Grover and his father, accused of conniving with each other in order to hide the “proceeds of crime” from the allegedly laundered money. The case related to misappropriation of funds meant for the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scheme in Uttar Pradesh.The agency alleged that the accused had “clandestinely” sold off half of the factory properties after knowledge of initiation of present proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act..According to the allegations, the written directions given by the father to his son, which were recovered during the search established that they were in possession of the property acquired from the proceeds of crime. Such properties were stated to have been were attached by the agency in 2017. The investigation also estimated the proceeds of crime to the tune of Rs 21.20 crore.In the defense of the applicant, his counsel argued that present complaint was filed by the investigating authority after a lapse of eight years from the date of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR). It was argued that the inquiry was supported by the applicant as and when directed, and therefore, his custody was not necessary..While deciding the plea, the Court highlighted that offenders of socio-economic offences were economically sound as the proceeds of crime in such cases were much larger."Therefore, in releasing them on bail/anticipatory bail probability of absconding not within country but beyond country is more probable. Usually socio-economic offenders abscond to some other country and after that it becomes difficult to bring them back and complete the criminal proceeding against them...” it noted..The order further highlighted that in order to gain “more and more profit” or to quickly “become rich” such criminals caused problems to the society jeopardising the safety and security of lives of others.“In the way to accumulate money and to get physical commodities, life, property and well-being of common persons have no value. Criminal acts committed by such persons are creating a serious challenge before criminal justice system. It is difficult to identify whether crime was committed, when it is identified that crime was committed, it is difficult to find out clues and thereby evidences. When evidences are available, nature of evidences is completely different as not possible to be collected by simple investigating, presented by prosecution agency and ultimately to convict and sentence. When sentenced, simple sentence is not effective to deal with such modern criminals and their criminality,” the Court observed..Such a criminal, of a “modern criminality”, was stated to be respected and influential with position, status, standing and means, thereby always being in a situation to influence the proceedings in an investigation and prosecution, tamper with the evidence and pressurise witnesses.Calling the socio-economic criminals as economically sound and belonging to an elite class, the Court underscored that the change in society had triggered a “complete change” in the “nature, cause, mode, rate and impact of crime on individual members of the society” and the society at large..“Further, all and every stereotype of crime and criminals have completely changed and it is causing greater problem to criminal justice. Previously crimes were committed by unsocialised or (sic) mal-socialised or improperly socialised persons for whom all traditional criminologists have been of opinion that they belong to lower class, such criminals were committing crime in unorganised manner without proper planning or completely in unplanned manner by using crude modus operandi leaving clues on crime scene, traditional evidences were available particularly eye witnesses, crimes were committed to satisfy need and necessity or enmity or jealousy or lust,” it added.The Court, however, clarified that its observations were “exclusively” for the anticipatory bail application and “shall not affect the trial in any manner”.Senior Counsel IB Singh assisted by advocates Priyam Kumar Singh, Amit Shukla, Dhruv Rajpurohit, Kshitij Agnihotri and Neha Shukla appeared for the applicant. Additional Solicitor General Shiv P Shukla appeared for the Enforcement Directorate. [Read Order]