IMPORTANT POINTS
(1) Money Laundering – Right to life and personal liberty enshrined under Article 21 of Constitution is overarching and sacrosanct – Constitutional Court cannot be restrained from granting bail to accused on account of restrictive statutory provisions in a penal statute.
(2) Bail – Statement of co-accused cannot be considered against petitioner and is not substantive piece of evidence – Its evidentiary value has to be tested at the time of trial and not at stage of granting bail.

JUDGMENT

Suvra Ghosh, J.—Initially the petitioner sought bail on the limited ground of his medical condition. In course of hearing of the application, he chose to file a supplementary affidavit seeking his release on bail on merits.

2. Argument canvassed by learned counsel for the petitioner is as hereunder:-

3. The Hon’ble High Court, vide order dated 8th June, 2022 in W.P.A. no. 9979 of 2022, directed Central Bureau of Investigation (in short the CBI) to register FIR and investigate the alleged illegalities in the selection process for assistant teachers in primary schools. The petitioner was not named either in the FIR, or in the charge sheet and supplementary charge sheet submitted by the CBI in the said matter, despite investigation being continued for more than two years. Therefore the petitioner had no role in respect of the predicate offence. On the basis of the predicate offence, the Enforcement Directorate (hereinafter referred to as the E.D.) registered ECIR no. KLZO/19/2022 dated 24th June, 2022 under The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (henceforth referred to as the PMLA). The petitioner was not named in the prosecution complaint filed by the E.D. on 19th September, 2022 or the three supplementary complaints filed on 7th December 2022, 21st March 2023 and 8th May 2023 respectively. He was arraigned as an accused in the fourth supplementary prosecution complaint filed on 28th July, 2023.

4. The petitioner is in custody for about one year and six months. The E.D. has relied upon 180 witnesses and 438 documents in the complaints and charge is yet to be framed. There is no possibility of commencement of trial in near future.

5. The petitioner is not a Government employee and has been implicated on the basis of statement of Tapas Kumar Mondal and Kuntal Ghosh recorded under section 50 of the PMLA, both of whom are co-accused. Their statements cannot be deemed to be substantive evidence for implicating the petitioner. The statement of Tapas Kumar Mondal reveals nexus between Manik Bhattacharyya, Kuntal Ghosh and himself. Tapas Kumar Mondal has stated that Manik Bhattacharyya was close to the petitioner and the list of 325 ineligible candidates who sought appointment by shelling out huge money was sent to Manik Bhattacharyya through the petitioner. Manik Bhattacharyya being close to Tapas Kumar Mondal since 2011, it is absurd that the petitioner was a bridge between Manik Bhattacharyya and Tapas Kumar Mondal.

6. The E.D. has failed to establish the link between the generation of proceeds of crime and the bank accounts of the petitioner. The property at 3A, Fort Lee-II, Premises No. 24, Lee Road, Bhowanipore, Kolkata –700 020 under provisional attachment was purchased by the daughter and son in law of the petitioner from M/s. Wealth Wizards Private Limited for consideration of Rs. 2.5 crores. The amount was paid by them by borrowing rupees one crore from certain companies and closing down a fixed deposit account of Late. G.P. Chatterjee, the son in law’s uncle, since deceased, which was inherited by the son in law and withdrawing an amount of Rs. 1.5 crores therefrom. The loan taken from the companies was repaid. Therefore the said money cannot be termed as proceeds of crime. There is also no allegation against G.P. Chatterjee, since deceased, or the companies granting loan to the son in law that they have been involved in the offence of money laundering or in generation of proceeds of crime in any manner.

7. The contents of voice recordings of the petitioner relied upon by the E.D. do not indicate the petitioner’s alleged involvement in the scam. The voice recording contains instructions from the petitioner to delete certain pictures and documents and has no nexus with the alleged offence.

8. Though it appears from the statement of Kuntal Ghosh that he had given Rs. 70 lakhs to the petitioner in February 2017, Kuntal Ghosh has admitted that the said money was returned to him by the petitioner in May, 2017. No can