Money Laundering Case: Delhi HC Refuses To Intervene With Arrest Of M3M Directors

The Delhi High Court recently refused to intervene with the arrest of Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, directors of M3M, a Gurugram-based realty group, in a money laundering investigation related to an alleged bribery case involving a former judge and others.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested the M3M directors on 14^th June and they were subsequently remanded to five-day custody by a special court in Panchkula. The directors argued that their arrest violated a high court order that granted them protection from coercive action in a separate money laundering case.

A vacation bench of Justice Jasmeet Singh acknowledged that the petitioners had been placed in ED custody by a trial court following their arrest, and therefore, the Delhi High Court could not determine the legality of the arrest since the order was issued by a court outside its jurisdiction.

The judge stated, “Once an order of remand has been passed by a court of competent jurisdiction in Panchkula, the appropriate remedy is to approach the High Court of Punjab and Haryana,” in response to the petitioners’ plea seeking their release from what they claimed to be “illegal detention” as interim relief.

The bench granted the ED a period of 10 days to file a response to the main petition challenging the arrest.

“We will issue notice. My territorial jurisdiction restricts me. I won’t be able to say this order (of remand) is bad,” the bench stated.

Senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi, N Hariharan, and Mohit Mathur represented the petitioners and contended that the M3M directors were apprehended when they voluntarily visited the agency to cooperate with the investigation in another money laundering case, as per the high court’s order.

On June 9, the high court had granted interim protection from arrest until July 5 to Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal in a money laundering case linked to the real estate firm IREO.

Advocate Singhvi argued that the present arrest was arbitrary and that the ED should not bypass the previous court order. It was further asserted that the agency should have informed the court about the existence of the present case during the hearing on the petitioners’ plea for anticipatory bail in the other case.

Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, representing the ED, opposed the petition and contended that the current case was a “serious matter” concerning the independence of the judiciary. He stated that the arrest had been examined by a competent court and the petitioners had been remanded to ED custody.

The money laundering case, for which Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal were arrested, relates to an FIR filed by the Haryana Police Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in April. The FIR names Sudhir Parmar, a former special judge handling ED and CBI cases, who was stationed in Panchkula, along with his nephew and a third director of the M3M group, Roop Kumar Bansal.

According to the FIR, the ED stated that it received reliable information that Parmar was exhibiting favoritism towards the accused individuals, namely Roop Kumar Bansal, his brother Basant Bansal, and IREO owner Lalit Goyal, in criminal cases pending against them in the ED and other cases in the CBI under Parmar’s jurisdiction.

Parmar was suspended by the Punjab and Haryana High Court following the registration of the ACB case. The ED has claimed that it has collected incriminating evidence such as bank statements and a money trail pertaining to the allegations mentioned in the FIR prior to the recent arrests.

The matter is scheduled for the next hearing in July.