Supreme Court Permits Unitech Promoters Sanjay And Ajay Chandra To Have One Video Conferencing Meeting Every Fortnight With Their Lawyers

Mr. Dave had replied, "We have asked for 4, Your Lordships may permit 2. We have learnt our lesson, we are following 'ask and get', we are following the model way."

After conferring with each other, the bench allowed 1 VC meeting for 1 hour every fortnight.

Justice Shah insisted that the Court order the identities of the lawyers to be disclosed in advance. "We have already suffered before", the judge said. It may be noted that in August last year, the Court had found that the Chandra brothers were, in connivance with the Tihar jail staff, engaging in illegal activities by flouting the jail manual, dissipating proceedings, derailing investigation etc. The bench made these comments in pursuance of the revelations made by ASG Madhavi Diwan, for the ED, on how the Chandra brothers are operating from Jail- that the ED has found a secret underground office of theirs in South Delhi, that hundreds of original property sale deeds, digital signatures and computers with sensitive information have been seized from the secret office, and that they deputed staff outside the Tihar jail premises to communicate with outside world and dispose off properties. It had also been alleged that they even tried to influence from jail a dummy director interrogated by the agency.The Court had then shifted the Chandra brothers to Arthur Road Jail, Mumbai and Taloja Jail, to be housed separately.

On Thursday, the bench passed the following order- "The accused have sought a direction permitting them to have meetings on the video conferencing mode with their lawyers on a weekly basis. Directions have also been sought for meeting the members of the family on the video conferencing mode. The applicants are permitted to have one video conferencing meeting every fortnight with their lawyers for a duration of one hour. As regards meetings with the family members, the jail authority shall act in accordance with the terms of the jail manual. The petitioner shall furnish to the superintendent of the jail in advance the identity of the advocate or, as of the case maybe, the advocate, with whom the meeting will be held together with proof of bar council enrollment"

On Thursday, the bench also heard an application pertaining to the money laundering case registered by the Directorate of Enforcement, inter alia, against the Chandras' 84-year old father, and Unitech founder, Ramesh Chandra. The application sought a clarification to the effect of permitting the applicant to approach the Sessions Court, Patiala House, New Delhi (PMLA court) to seek bail in accordance with law. The bench heard Mr. Dave in support of the application, and Ms. Suhasini Sen for the Delhi police.

The bench then granted permission to the Chandras' 84-year old father, and Unitech founder, Ramesh Chandra, to pursue his remedies as prayed in the application by moving the competent court under the PMLA for seeking bail. "We clarify that this court has not expressed any opinion on the merits of the application", added the bench.

Further, the bench heard an IA moved by the Directorate of Enforcement. "The ED has stated that it would be filing a supplementary prosecution complaint before the Special Court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 against the accused persons and for that purpose, it intends to annex the report of the forensic auditors, M/s Grant Thornton, to the prosecution complaint", recorded the bench.

The bench further noted that by an order of this court dated 6 October 2021, the request of the accused for a copy of the report was not acceded to at that stage since the report of the forensic auditors was the subject matter of the investigation which was being conducted by the ED .

"Since the ED has stated that it is filing a supplementary prosecution complaint under the PMLA, it is clarified that the order dated 6 October 2021 shall not preclude the ED from annexing the report to the prosecution complaint and to rely upon the document. With the above clarification, permission is granted to the ED to file the report of the forensic auditor, together with the prosecution complaint which is to be filed before the special court for offences punishable under the PMLA. The IA is accordingly disposed off", ordered the bench on Thursday.