The Rouse Avenue Court on Wednesday listed a bail plea moved by Nitin Bhatnagar for Thursday, a Maltese citizen arrested in connection with his alleged involvement in the offence of Money Laundering in a case of M/s Moser Baer India Ltd. and others.
Bhatnagar was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 on August 22, 2023.
Special Judge Raghubir Singh sought response from the ED and listed the matter for Thursday, September 14 for arguments.
Furthermore, the court also extended the judicial custody of Bhatnagar till September 26.
Bhatnagar was produced before the court after the end of his judicial remand period. Senior Advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey appeared for Nitin Bhatnagar.
According to ED, the investigation was initiated against M/s Moser Baer India Ltd. and others under the provisions of PMLA, 2002 on the basis of an FIR dated on August 17, 2019, registered by CBI under various sections of the IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
Previously on April 20, 2019, the account of M/s Moser Baer India Ltd. was declared fraud by the complainant bank, and the loan amount was siphoned off by the directors, namely Ratul Puri (Nephew of Congress leader Kamalnath) and his family members.
According to the ED, Nitin Bhatnagar helped in the opening of a bank account in April 2011 in the name of M/s Pristine River Investments Limited in the Bank of Singapore.
M/s Pristine River Investments Limited was a Dubai-based investment holding company, under the direction of Ratul Puri. The entity M/s Pristine River Investments Limited was fully owned by the Savannah Trust. Ratul Puri was the settler of the Savannah Trust.
ED investigation revealed that M/s Pristine River Investments Limited received the proceeds of crime amounting to USD 14.18 million from M/s UHY Saxena, M/s Mercon Commodities and M/s Midas Metals International, entities that were managed and controlled by Rajiv Saxena.
According to the ED, Rajiv Saxena is a hawala operator and an accommodation entry provider who runs an accommodation entry business in Dubai and has laundered proceeds of crime for Moser Baer India Limited.
Therefore, he has created structures for laundering the proceeds of crime generated by Ratul Puri and his family members.
The investigation revealed that the account of M/s Pristine River Investments Limited has been used for the layering of proceeds of crime and Nitin Bhatnagar that was actively involved in the layering of these proceeds of crime for the main accused Ratul Puri.
Earlier, in this case ED arrested the businessman, Ratul Puri in the year 2019.
Further, during the investigation Rajiv Saxena, the hawala operator and Rajiv Aggarwal, a close aide of Ratul Puri, were arrested in 2021 and prosecution complaints have been already filed against these accused persons.
ED stated, property amounting to USD 47.95 million has been already attached in this case.
