Delhi Court Grants Bail To Ex-Unitech Promoters Sanjay Chandra And Ajay Chandra In PMLA Case

A Delhi Court on Friday granted regular bail to Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra, Unitech's former promoters, in a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Additional Sessions Judge Dheeraj Mor of Patiala House Courts noted that both Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra had undergone two and a half years of incarceration in the case having maximum punishment of 07 years.

The court also noted that the co-accused, Preeti Chandra and Rajesh Malik, have already been enlarged on bail and there was enough justifiable reason for invoking hte principles of parity in favour of Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra.

“Therefore, it would be travesty of justice to curtail the liberty of the applicants for several years in PMLA case, al the more when their guilt in this case is dependent upon the establishment of scheduled offence in separate trials with robust legal principles of innocence till proven guilty in their favour,” the court said.

The judge said that in legislations like UAPA and NDPS Act, the evidence is collected and produced before the court by the same investigating agency and there is presumption against the accused of commission of the said offence. However, the court said, that in PMLA, the evidence of foundational fact (scheduled offence) is collected and proved by the separate investigating agency, where the general principles of criminal jurisprudence including presumption of innocence till proved guilty are available in favour of the accused.

“The legislature never intended that an accused be deprived of bail at the stage when the foundational facts are merely allegations in the form of complaint and charge-sheet but are yet to be established in the court of law. In Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary' case (supra), it has been held that acquittal, discharge or quashing of the schedule offence will result in termination of PMLA proceedings in all eventualities,” the court said. 

It was alleged that Unitech, with mala fide intention, diverted the home buyers' funds for non-mandated purposes, delayed completion of housing projects and time bound delivery of their homes.

The allegations against Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra were that they were instrumental in incorporation, control and management of 96 benami companies him India as well as abroad which were used for generation, layering and laundering of proceeds of crime.

Granting bail to the duo, the court observed that the proceeds of crime in the could not be more than Rs.223 Crores as against ED's claim of it being Rs.6,352 Crores.

“However, the investigating agency has created an unreasonable perception against the applicants that the POC in this case is more than Rs.6,000 Crores,” the court said.

It added that ED, by not collecting and placing the evidence for the commission of scheduled offence FIRs coupled with the backdrop of no conviction in any of the said FIRs till date, deprived it of arriving at a prima facie conclusion regarding the strength of allegations of the scheduled offence.

The court said that both Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra satisfied the triple test for grant of bail under PMLA.

“The investigation in this case though appears to have been done extensively, actually lack the sense of direction and purpose as it has gone haywire to probe it to the domain that is alien to its jurisdiction while ironically ignoring to collect the indispensable evidence to establish the foundational facts of this case,” the court said.

Advocates Arshdeep Singh Khurana, Neeha Nagpal and Nikunj Mahajan appeared for Sanjay Chandra. Advocates Vishal Gosain and Anuroop Chakravarti appeared for Ajay Chandra. SPPs NK Matta and Arun Khatri appeared for ED.