Excise policy scam: Delhi court grants bail to Rajesh Joshi and Gautam Malhotra in money laundering case

A Delhi court on Saturday granted bail to Rajesh Joshi and Gautam Malhotra in the money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. .This is the first regular bail granted in the case.Special CBI Judge MK Nagpal ordered the release of Joshi and Malhotra noting that the evidence against them cannot be considering to be incriminating enough to justify the attraction of bar and rigours of Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) or their continued detention and denial of bail. .The ED had argued that Joshi was an associate of AAP communications in-charge Vijay Nair and was involved in transfer of advance kickbacks of around ₹30 crores received from ‘South lobby’ to Nair. It was further alleged that he was responsible for channelising the kickbacks through expenditure borne by AAP in its Goa election campaign.With respect to Malhotra, it was stated that he formed a cartel by participating in liquor business in the city on all three levels; manufacturing, wholesale, and retail. The ED also said that Malhotra paid nearly ₹2.5 crores as bribe..After considering the case against Joshi, the court said that at this, it cannot be said that he was involved in transfer of kickbacks and there is no independent evidence to that effect either.“Again, no statement of even any hawala operator alleged to have been involved in these transactions has been recorded and produced before the court nor any record seized from any such hawala operator in connection with transmission of the above amount has been shown to the court. Moreover, the applicant himself has also admittedly not made any incriminating depositions in his statements made U/S 50 of the PMLA and recorded by the ED officials,” the court noted.On the allegation of Joshi using his media company to channelise funds during AAP’s Goa election campaign, the court noted that one of the witnesses in the case has already retracted her statement.“It added that there is nothing to show that cash received by Joshi’s company is connected with the kickbacks. It can be observed that the alleged kickback amount is very huge i.e. around Rs. 100 crores and even a huge amount of around Rs. 20-30 crores is alleged to have been transferred through this applicant, whereas the payments which were allegedly made by him for the election related jobs are for meagre amount in lacs.”.While dealing with the evidence against Malhotra, Judge Nagpal said even the prosecution’s star witness (Dinesh Arora) is not supporting their case regarding payment of ₹2.5 crore to the co-accused Amit Arora as bribe or towards repayment of advance kickback amount.The judge noted that Malhotra may have formed the cartel in violation of provisions of the excise policy but it appears to be a pure business cartel to push the sale of his liquor brands.“Further, it is the admitted case of prosecution that this applicant had not played any role whatsoever in formulation of the above excise policy and he was not even a part of the South lobby paying advance kickbacks of Rs. 100 crores. Again, he is also not alleged to have paid any such advance kickbacks to the co-accused Vijay Nair, other politicians of AAP or the other public servants before or in connection with formulation of the said policy.”The court did not find any evidence to back the allegation that the retail vends belonging to Malhotra were beneficiary of excess credit notes of ₹48.9 lakhs..It finally concluded that neither of the two accused can be considered to be flight risks and there are no reasonable chances of destruction/tampering of evidence or of influencing the witnesses..Senior Advocate Dr Menaka Guruswamy along with advocates Rajat Bhardwaj, Kanishk Raj, Utkarsh Pratap, Lavkesh Bambani, Mukta Halbe, Denson Joseph and Shivender Dwivedi appeared for Rajesh Joshi.Senior Advocate Ramesh Gupta with advocates Dhruv Gupta, Vijay S Bishnoi, Pooja Bansal, Ishaan Jain and Sumit Kansal represented Gautam Malhotra.The ED was represented through Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain and Special Public Prosecutor NK Matta. They were assisted by advocates Vivek Gurnani, Baibhav, Kavish Gairach and Kartik Sabharwal..[Read Order]