The gravity of the alleged offences, the petitioner's non-cooperation, and the potential flight risk outweighed any entitlement to bail.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: This Criminal Original Petition is filed under Section 439 of Cr.P.C., pleased to enlarge the petitioner on bail in F.No.ECIR/CEZO/I/01/2018 dated 31.01.2018 on the file of the respondent and such terms and conditions as this Hon’ble Court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case.)

1. The petitioner, was arrested on 04.03.2022 for the alleged offence under Section 3 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 as amended under Section 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002, (hereinafter referred as to “PMLA”) in F.No.ECIR/CEZO/I/01/2018, on the file of the respondent police.

2. This petition under Section 439 of Criminal Original Petition filed to enlarge the petitioner on bail.

3. The case of the petitioner is that:-

The petitioner herein is a native of Chennai. He is residing at Singapore with his family and presently he is a non-resident Indian, holding Indian passport. The petitioner is a promoter and Director of M/s.Coastal Energen Private Limited (hereinafter referred as “CEPL”), Chennai. He has established a power plant under the name and style M/s.Mutiara Thermal Power Plant, Tuticorin with 1200 MW capacity based on conversion of coal into thermal energy. The energy generated from the plant is sold to TANGEDCO. For operation of the power plant, the entity (CEPL) imports coal from overseas especially from South East Asian countries like Indonesia etc. During the period 2011-2015, (CEPL) imported coal from Indonesia under several consignments. The said goods were duly assessed by respective customs authorities and cleared for home consumption after due examination/scrutiny of import documents including test certificate, certificate of origin, invoice, contracts etc.

4. While so, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Mumbai Zonal Unit, commenced investigations into the imports of coal with artificial inflation of values by certain Indian traders and actual users. It was suspected that the traders supply such coal to public sector coal based thermal generation companies at artificially inflated import price and the inflated price is remitted from India to the intermediary firms abroad which in turn remit only the actual price to the suppliers of the Indonesian coal and the balance is allegedly syphoned off.

5. After conducting extensive investigations, the petitioner Company was suspected of inflated price to inferior quality coal and involved in money laundering, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence issued a Show Cause Notice dated 14.2.2017 under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962 in F.No.DRI/MZU/F/INT.160/2014. The Show Cause Notice issued by the office of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence was duly responded by this petitioner and thereafter same has not been adjudicated till date and has been kept pending.

6. On the basis of the aforesaid Show Cause Notice and other inputs obtained from the petitioner the Central Bureau of Investigation, Economic Offences Wing, New Delhi - III commenced investigations into the supply of imported coal to various public sector entities like NTPC/APCL etc. The allegation against M/s.Coastal Energy Pvt. Ltd., (CEPL) Chennai and others was that they entered into criminal conspiracy amongst themselves and in connivance with unknown officers of NTPC/MMTC, APCL to cheat the Government of India in the matter relating to import of coal of Indonesian origin by fraudulently showing inferior quality of coal as that of superior quality.

7. Based on these inputs Central Bureau Investigation registered the F.I.R in R.C.No.221/2018/E003 dated 22.01.2018 under the provisions of Sections 120-B r/w Section 420 I.P.C and Section 13(2) r/w Section 13(1)(d) of Prevention and Corruption Act, 1988. The First Information Report registered by CBI is also pending and no final report has been filed by the investigation agency namely the CBI, EOW, New Delhi.

8. While after two Central Government Law Enforcing Agencies namely Directorate of Revenue Inte