The court emphasized that in economic offences, especially under the PMLA, bail should not be granted unless the accused demonstrates they are not guilty and unlikely to commit further offences.

Order :

(Arvind Kumar Verma, J.)

By way of present application under Section 483 of the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (‘BNSS’) read with Section 45 of the PMLA on behalf of the applicant herein, is seeking grant of regular bail in ECIR/RPZO/04/2024 dated 11.04.2024 for the alleged offence under Sections 3 and 4 of the PMLA. The applicant was arrested in pursuance of ECIR/RPZO/04/2024 of 2024 registered with Raipur Zone dated 11.04.2024 by the Directorate of Enforcement. The applicant has been involved in the same which involves laundering of proceeds of crime of more than 2000 crores approximately. As such the accused in involved in a grave and heinous financial crime.

FACTUAL ASPECTS

2. Facts of the case relevant for adjudication of the instant bail application are as follows:

The applicant is a retired officer of the Indian Administrative Services with a distinguished and unblemished service record. He retired as Joint Secretary in the Department of Commerce and Industry, Chhattisgarh in May 2023. The ECIR is a second ECIR and the first being ECIR/RPZO/11/2022 which was quashed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court vide order dated 08.04.2021 with a categorical finding that no scheduled offence is made out and there were no proceeds of crime in relation to ECIR 11 and the Prosecution Complaint filed therein. The said ECIR was registered merely 3 days after the quashing of the first ECIR on the same alleged liquor scam making the same allegations arising out of the same transactions.

3. Chhattisgarh State police registered 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 l