Supreme Court grants bail to M3M directors Basant and Pankaj Bansal in money laundering case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to realty group M3M's directors, Basant and Pankaj Bansal, in a money laundering case registered against them by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is tied to bribery allegations against a former judge. [Directorate of Enforcement vs Roop Bansal and Ors].A bench of Justices AS Bopanna and PV Sanjay Kumar emphasised that the focus of the bail matter was solely on the legality of the arrest and remand and not the merits of the allegations.Referring to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and judgments in the money laundering case against Tamil Nadu minister, A Senthil Balaji, the Court underscored that a mere order of remand is not enough to validate the grounds of arrest."Though much was stated and argued by both sides on the merits of the matter in terms of the involvement of the appellants in the alleged offence of money laundering, we make it clear that we are not concerned with that issue at this point. The only issue for consideration presently is whether the arrest of the appellants under Section 19 of the Act of 2002 was valid and lawful and whether the impugned orders of remand passed by the learned Vacation Judge/Additional Sessions Judge, Panchkula, measure up," the Court said..Further, the Court emphasized that Section 167 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) must be necessarily complied with. The ED's actions in curbing money laundering should be fair, stringent and not vindictive, the Court added. "Being a premier investigating agency, charged with the onerous responsibility of curbing the debilitating economic offence of money laundering in our country, every action of the ED in the course of such exercise is expected to be transparent, above board and conforming to pristine standards of fair play in action. The ED, mantled with far-reaching powers under the stringent Act of 2002, is not expected to be vindictive in its conduct and must be seen to be acting with utmost probity and with the highest degree of dispassion and fairness."The Court found fault with the ED for its failure to discharge its functions in accordance with these parameters and noted that there appeared to be no consistent and uniform practice followed by the ED in furnishing grounds for arrest."The clandestine conduct of the ED in proceeding against the appellants, by recording the second ECIR immediately after they secured interim protection in relation to the first ECIR, does not commend acceptance as it reeks of arbitrary exercise of power".Accordingly, the Court allowed the appeals by the Bansal brothers and set aside the arrest and remand order against them..The top court was hearing an appeal challenging an order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that had refused to quash the Bansal brothers' arrest and remand by the ED..The Bansal brothers were arrested by the Haryana Police’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in connection with a first information report (FIR) registered earlier this year against former Special Judge CBI/ED, Sudhir Parmar.The ED claimed that it had received information that Parmar was showing favouritism to the accused in a money laundering case concerning real estate firm, IREO.After the ACB registered the case, the Punjab and Haryana High Court also suspended judge Parmar.On a related note, in June this year, Supreme Court judge, Justice KV Viswanathan recused from hearing another plea by the Bansal brothers challenging their arrest and an order giving the ED custody over them. .Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Randeep Rai, and Vikram Chaudhary with advocates Malak Manish Bhatt, Neeha Nagpal and Rajat Joneja appeared for the Bansals before the apex court.Additional Solicitor General SV Raju appeared for the ED..[Read judgment]