Probing Offence Under PMLA An Intricate Exercise Of 'Skills & Patience': Delhi Court Sends Ambience Mall Owner To ED Remand Till August 7

A Delhi Court on Thursday sent Raj Singh Gehlot, owner of the Gurugram-based Ambience Mall to the Enforcement Directorate's remand till August 7 [after his previous remand custody ended on August 5] in connection with a money laundering case for allegedly siphoning off the loan amount and diverting funds while entering into a criminal conspiracy.

"Investigation of an offence under PMLA in itself is an intricate exercise of skills and patience. The very nature of offence requires sustained interrogation and an intensive analysis of the copious material collected during the course of the investigation," noted Additional Sessions, Judge Dharmender Rana, while ordering thus.

Importantly, the Court also emphasized that Investigation under PMLA, for obvious reasons, is a time-consuming process and thus the investigating agency in a PMLA case deserves a little more time in comparison to the time required in investigating an ordinary crime.

Facts in brief

A loan was allegedly sanctioned to M/s AHPL by a consortium of banks led by J&K Bank, Ansal Plaza, Delhi for construction of a hotel. Gehlot was accused of siphoning off the money in connivance of bank officials through a web of shell companies and his associates.

It was therefore alleged that Gehlot entered into a criminal conspiracy with other accused persons to fraudulently siphon off the loan amount by diverting the funds for other purposes such as to settle the loan of other group companies and making Fixed Deposit as well as diversion of materials to other projects of the Ambience Group.

Earlier the Court had sent Gehlot o Enforcement Directorate's remand till August 5

Submissions

It was submitted by SPP that after taking the custody remand of accused, he was confronted with bank account statements of his various companies, statements /documents of various vendors of the project, data extracted from digital devices and statements of various employees/relatives who were directors in group companies or owners of entities to whom funds were transferred from the sanctioned loan amount but during interrogation, accused was not able to provide any satisfactory explanation for the diversion of funds to different entities.

It was thus prayed that ED remand of accused Raj Singh Gehlot may be extended for a further period of seven days.

On the other hand, Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa opposed his further remand by submitting that unless there are very strong and exceptional circumstances for extension of ED remand, the ED remand cannot be extended.

It is further submitted that extension of ED remand any further in the instant matter shall in fact be violative of Articles 20 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

Court's order

Having perused the material produced by the investigating officer, the court opined that there were grounds for further extension of ED remand.

"However, ED is not divested of its onerous responsibility to expeditiously conclude the investigation," the court concluded.

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