The Bombay high court on Tuesday extended ad-interim protection from arrest till May 25 to Asif Balwa of DB Realty and six others in a money laundering case in which former deputy chief minister Chhag
The Bombay high court on Tuesday extended ad-interim protection from arrest till May 25 to Asif Balwa of DB Realty and six others in a money laundering case in which former deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal and his nephew Sameer are already arrested and non-bailable warrant (NBW) has been issued against Bhujbal’s son Pankaj and more than 30 people by a special PMLA court.
All the seven accused approached the high court challenging issuance of NBW against them as well as seeking anticipatory bail.
The applicants through their lawyers like Mahesh Jethmalani, Ishwar Prasad Bagadia and Shirish Gupte have contended that proper procedure was not followed while issuing NBW against the applicants. According to them the applicants should have been issued summons first.
They further argued that the alleged offences with which they have been charged with are non-cognisable offences and warrants could not have been issued against them at the first instance because they were not arrested during interrogation.
Public prosecutor Poornima Kantharia opposed the bail plea saying that there is bar on granting pre-arrest bail or ad-interim relief to applicants as per section 45 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Applicant’s lawyers also claimed that the high court has granted bail in similar case and the Supreme Court has also granted relief to a co-accused in this case and hence they should also be granted relief from arrest till their applications are heard and decided.
After hearing arguments Justice Ajay Gadkari extended the interim relief from arrest to all the seven applicants till May 25.
The agency filed two FIRs against Bhujbal and others under anti-money laundering laws, based on FIRs filed by Anti-Corruption Bureau, to probe alleged irregularities in the construction of the state guest house ‘Maharashtra Sadan’ in Delhi and the Kalina land-grabbing case in Mumbai.
Praveenkumar Jain, Chandrashekhar Sarda, Sanjiv Jain, Rajesh Mistry, Vipul Karkaria Jagdishprasad Purohit and Asif Balwa are the seven persons who have been granted relief by the HC.
