IMPORTANT POINT
Anticipatory bail – Rigour of Section 45 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 shall be applicable even with respect to application under Section 438 Cr.P.C. – In case of economic offences which are having impact on society, Court must be very slow in exercising discretion under Section 438 of Cr.P.C.

JUDGMENT :

M.R. SHAH, J.

1. Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied with the impugned judgment and order dated 02.03.2021 passed by the High Court of Telangana at Hyderabad in Criminal Petition No. 1148/2021, by which, the High Court has allowed the said bail application and has granted the anticipatory bail in favour of respondent No. 1 herein and has directed to release him on bail in the event of his arrest in connection with F. No. ECIR/HYZO/36/2020 dated 15.12.2020 on the file of the Assistant Director, Enforcement Directorate (hereinafter referred to as the ED), Government of India, Hyderabad, which was registered for the offence of money laundering under Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (hereinafter referred to as the Act, 2002) and punishable under Section 4 of the said Act, the Directorate of Enforcement has preferred the present appeal.

2. A FIR was registered by Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Bhopal vide FIR No. 12/2019 dated 10.04.2019 wherein 20 persons/companies were named as suspected in the said scam. M/s Max Mantena Micro JV, Hyderabad was one among them.

2.1 As per the FIR, the Government of Madhya Pradesh e-Procurement Portal was being run by MPSEDC. M/s Antares Systems Limited, Bangalore and M/s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) were given the contract for the period of 5 years for the maintenance & operation of the said portal. Some of the officials of MPSEDC in collusion with the companies entrusted with maintenance and testing of the portals namely M/s Osmo IT Solutions and M/s Antares Systems Ltd, illegally accessed the e-Tender portal and rigged the bidding process to suit a few private bidders for huge amounts of bribe considerations.

2.2 As per the investigating agency, the preliminary investigation by the Police established that various e-tenders were illegally accessed and bids of a few companies were manipulated to illegally make the bids of those concerns as the lowest one.

2.3 Apart from tenders mentioned in the first preliminary charge sheet filed by the EOW Bhopal namely No. 91, 93, 94 (Water Resource Dept); 2 tenders vide Nos. 49985 & 49982 of PWD; Tender no 49813, Tender No. 786 of MPRDC; and Tenders vide Nos. 10030 & 10044, it was suspected that many other tenders have also been tampered using the same modus operandi. M/s Mantena Group of Companies, Hyderabad, was suspected to be a major beneficiary of this e-tender scam. As per the EOW charge sheet, a joint venture of the Mantena Group known as M/s Max Mantena Micro JV is the direct beneficiary of a tampered e-tender No. 10030 worth Rs. 1020 Crore.

2.4 According to the investigating agency, the investigation into the said FIR for the offences under Sections 120B, 420, 471 IPC and Section 7 r/w Section 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act is going on and the said offences are scheduled offences under the Act, 2002. The ED has initiated money laundering investigation in File No. ECIR/HYZO/36/2020.

2.5 According to the ED, in order to gather evidence, a search operation was conducted under the provisions of Section 17(1) of PMLA, 2002. Accordingly, 18 premises were searched including the residences of the promoters and offices of M/s Mantena Constructions Ltd, M/s Anteras Pvt Ltd, M/s Osmo IT Solutions Pvt Ltd, M/s Arni Infra, etc. a good amount of incriminating documents and digital devices have been seized and are being examined for evidence. It is clear from the ED investigation done so far that a systematic conspiracy has been planned and executed by a number of infrastructure companies based at Hyderabad in collusion with a few Government officials and IT management companies to illegally win e-tenders. Further large amounts of bribes running into crore(s) of rupees have exchanged hands using hawala channels. The public funds meant for development activities have been diverted and siphoned off for personal illegal enrichment and for making illegal bribe payments. The appellant department has recovered fund trail evidence a