The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to Arvind Dham, promoter of the Amtek Group, in a money laundering case linked to an alleged bank fraud of nearly ₹27,000 crore..A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Alok Aradhe allowed Dham’s appeal and set aside the order of the Delhi High Court, which had earlier declined to grant him regular bail..The Court held that the right to a speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution is not diluted by the nature of the offence alleged."Prolonged incarceration of an undertrial, without commencement or reasonable progress of trial, cannot be countenanced, as it has the effect of converting pretrial detention into form of punishment. Economic offences, by their very nature, may differ in degree and fact, and therefore cannot be treated as homogeneous class warranting a blanket denial of bail," the judgment said..The Court noted that cognizance had not yet been taken on the prosecution complaint and that the matter was still at the stage of scrutiny of documents. It recorded that no material was placed on record to indicate the outcome of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) application dated September 27, 2025 seeking day-to-day hearing, even after the lapse of nearly three months. With 210 witnesses are proposed to be examined, the Court found no likelihood of the trial commencing in the near future. Since the evidence was primarily documentary and already in the custody of the prosecution, continued incarceration in these circumstances was held to violate the appellant’s right to a speedy trial under Article 21..The High Court had observed that in economic offences of this magnitude, the larger societal interest assumes significance over individual liberty and that granting bail to Dham at this juncture would risk compromising both the trial and public confidence in the justice system..Dham, considered the 'controlling mind' of the Amtek Group, has been accused by the ED of orchestrating the diversion of loan funds through a complex web of more than 500 shell companies.It is alleged that the group overstated fixed assets, falsified accounts and siphoned off loans availed from a consortium of banks..The ED has claimed that immovable assets worth over ₹5,000 crore were concealed, while proceeds were routed through benami firms and investments..Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Niranjan Reddy, along with Advocate Mahesh Agarwal, appeared for Dham assisted by Advocates Mahesh Agarwal, Ankur Saigal, Ayushi Gaur, Anwesha Padhi, Sanjivani Pattjoshi, Sameer Rohatgi, Abhishek Singh, Shambhu K. Thakur, Rishabh Basra and Shobh Nath Maurya, and E.C. Agrawala..[Read Judgment].Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.
