Supreme Court Grants Bail To Rajasthan Jal Jeevan Mission Scam Accused Sanjay Badaya In Money Laundering Case

The Supreme Court today granted bail to Sanjay Badaya in a money laundering case arising out of Rajasthan's Jal Jeevan Mission scam, in which he is alleged to have acted as a middleman for a Minister.

A bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan passed the order, taking into account the fact that co-accused Piyush Jain (against whom similar allegations were levelled) has already been granted bail, that trial is not likely to be concluded in near future and that charges are yet to be framed.

The order was dictated thus:

"We find that the allegations made against the present petitioner are almost similar to the allegations made against Piyush Jain, who was granted benefit of bail by this Court vide order dated 09.09.2024. As a matter of fact, the said Piyush Jain is also added as an accused in the predicate offense, whereas the present applicant is not an accused in the predicate offense. The amount attributed to the said Piyush Jain is to the tune of Rs.8.87 crores whereas insofar as the present applicant is concerned, it is alleged that he has received Rs.3.3 crores of proceeds of crime and an amount of Rs.1.50 crores was also deposited in the account of his father.

The further allegation against the applicant as well as said Piyush Jain is that he was facilitating awards of contract from the PHED (Public Health Engineering Department) and receiving money on behalf of Minister of the said Department. Admittedly, the said Minister has also not been made an accused in the present case. Apart from that, substantial evidence in the present case is in the nature of documents and as such, there is no possibility of tampering with the evidence. All these documents are seized by the prosecution.

It is further noted that the charges are yet to be framed. There are 50 witnesses to be examined and evidence contains around 8000 pages. As such, the possibility of the trial being concluded expeditiously is also remote. Taking into consideration all these aspects, and particularly the order passed by co-ordinate bench in the case of Piyush Jain, we are inclined to allow the application."

Badaya was arrested by ED on July 16 this year and spent nearly 5 months in custody. The case arose out of award of two tenders for Rs.197 crores on the basis of fake certificates. According to Section 50 PMLA statements given by co-accused, Badaya facilitated payment of bribes and managed PHED employees on behalf of then Minister-Mahesh Joshi.

After the Rajasthan High Court denied him bail in November, Badaya approached the Supreme Court.

Appearance: Senior Advocates Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Atmaram Nadkarni, Advocate Vivek Jain (for Sanjay Badaya); Advocate Zoheb Hossain (for ED)

Case Title: SANJAY BADAYA v. DIRECTORATE OF ENFORCEMENT, SLP(Crl) No. 15953/ 2024