The court held that the seriousness of economic offences under the PMLA necessitates stringent bail conditions, emphasizing that prolonged incarceration does not automatically warrant bail if substantial evidence exists against the accused.

ORDER :

(ARVIND KUMAR VERMA, J.)

By way of present application under Section 483 of the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (‘BNSS’) on behalf of the applicant herein, the applicant is seeking grant of regular bail in ECIR/RPZO/04/2024 dated 11.04.2024 for the offence under Section 3 read with Section 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 .

2. Facts of the case in brief are that the applicant was absconding till he was arrested on 06.05.2023 in ECIR/RPZO/11/2022. Search Operation under Section 17 of the PMLA was conducted at his premises and was found hiding at a hotel and he was arrested.

Chhatisgarh State police registered an FIR bearing No. 04/2024 dated 17.01.2024 at EOW/ACB, Raipur under Sections for the offence punishable under Sections 120-B, 420,467,468,471 of IPC and Section 7 & 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act against Mr. Anil Tuteja (retired IAS) then Joint Secretary in CG State, Anwar Dhebar, Mr. Arunpati Tripathi (ITS) then Special Secretary, Government of Commerce and industry Department and MD CG State Marketing Corporation Ltd. Mr. Vikas Agarwal @ Subbu, Mr. Sanjay Diwan and Others for collecting commissions and supplying unaccounted liquor to government liquor shops resulting in an approximate loss of Rs. 2161 crores to the government.

3. The manufacturers of country liquor in Chhattisgarh namely CG Distilleries Ltd., M/s. Bhatia Wine Merchant Private ltd. And Welcome Distilleries Pvt. Ltd. Are licensed to supply country liquor in the State. It is alleged that Co-accused Anwar Dhebar took advantage of his political influence and family relations with Anil Tuteja and in association with Arunpathi Tripathi, the Managing Director of CSMCL lead to increase in the rate of liquor production and supply and in return gained illegal commissions amounting to lakhs of rupees from the distillery owners which is called Part -A.

4. Similarly, a new system which ran parallel to the existing system of selling country liquor through government shops was created without any records from distillery operators, which involved constructing duplicate holograms and selling them separately through government liquor shops. The illegal sale of these duplicate holograms resulted in earning worth crores of rupees in which several individuals were implicated including distillery owners, bottle supplier agencies, duplicate hologram supplying agencies, agencies involved in the collection of money. These illicit sale took place during the years 2019-20,2020-21 and 2021-22 and is called Part-B.

5. Additionally, the collection of bribes from foreign liquor manufacturers FL-10A license was implemented, which was granted to three favoured firms of Anwar Dhebar. The license FL-10A was granted to Mr. Sanjay Mishra and Manish Mishra of M/s. Nexgen power Engitech Pvt. Ltd. , Mr. Atul Kumar Singh and Mr. Mukesh Manchanda of M/s. Om Sai Beverage Pvt. Ltd. And Mr. Ashish Saurabh Kedia of M/s. Dishita Ventures Pvt. Ltd. These license holders were granted tender for the supply of foreign liquor through a conspiracy. All the three licence holding firms procured liquor from foreign liquor manufacturing Companies and made it available to the State government, making a profit of 10%. Out of this profit, 60% was given to the syndicate and the remaining 40% was received by the license holders.

The syndicate received commission from the distillery owners by increasing, parallel manufacturing and supplying duplicate liquor through the F-10-A license.

6. The FIR for the predicate offence as discussed above is registered by ACB/EOW, Raipur under Sections 120-B, 420,467 and 471 IPC and Sections 7 & 12 of the PC Act which are the scheduled offence included in paragraphs 1 &8 of Part A of the Schedule to PMLA, 2002 as defined under Section 2(1)(y) of the Act and accordingly, enquiries were initiated under the PMLA against the suspected persons after recording the facts of scheduled ofence and initiating money laundering investigation in file No. ECIR/RPZO/