Supreme Court: Exercising its criminal appellate jurisdiction, the division bench of M.R. Shah* and C.T. Ravikumar J.J., while setting aside the judgment passed by the Telangana High Court stated that it did not take into consideration the nature of allegation and seriousness of the offences alleged of money laundering and offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (‘PMLA’) but instead dealt with the prayer for anticipatory bail in connection with the ordinary offence under the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’).
In the matter at hand, Directorate of Enforcement challenged the judgement passed the High Court which had granted anticipatory bail in favour of respondent 1 for the offence of money laundering under Section 3 and punishable under Section 4 of PMLA.
According to the preliminary investigation, various e-tenders were illegally accessed, and bids of a few companies were manipulated. The First Information Report stated offences under Section 120-B, 420, 471 of IPC and Section 7 and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 which were also scheduled offences under PMLA.
Respondent 1 apprehending his arrest had approached the High Court by way of anticipatory bail application under Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (‘CrPC’) which had consequently allowed the anticipatory bail application without considering the bar under Section 45 of PMLA.
The bench observed that since investigation against respondent 1 was on going under PMLA, the rigours of Section 45 would be attracted in the present case even when the application was under Section 438 of CrPC therefore, making grant of anticipatory bail as unsustainable in the eyes of law.
The bench was of the view that the High Court did not consider the nature of allegation and seriousness of the offences alleged of money laundering and the offences under PMLA but instead dealt with the prayer for anticipatory bail in connection with the ordinary offence under IPC.
The Court further stated that merely because the others accused in the present matter were acquitted does not give a ground to not to continue the investigation against respondent 1.
The Court while referring to P. Chidambaram v. Directorate of Enforcement, (2019) 9 SCC 24 stated that in case of an economic offence which has a severe impact on the society, the Courts should be very slow in exercising the discretion under Section 438 of CrPC.
With these observations, the Court set aside the order passed by the High Court granting anticipatory bail to respondent 1 with observation that a future application of bail on his behalf upon his arrest, if any, may be considered in accordance with law and on its own merits.
[Directorate of Enforcement v M. Gopal Reddy, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 1862, decided on 24-02-2023]
Judgment authored by Justice M.R. Shah
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the petitioner: Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj and Advocate Mukesh Kumar Maroria;
For the respondent: Advocate VKC Law Offices and Advocate Vijay Agarwal.
