IMPORTANT POINT
The court denied bail under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, finding substantial evidence of the applicant's involvement in money laundering activities and insufficient grounds to believe she is not guilty.

JUDGMENT :

Jaspreet Singh, J.

1. This is a pre-trial bail application moved by the applicant who is arraigned in connection with ECIR No. LKZO/05/2021, under Section 3/4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (hereinafter referred to as The PML Act of 2002).

2. The background is, that large number of FIRs were lodged against Shine City Group of Companies and its Directors, Promoters, share holders, authorized representatives and beneficial owners, all across the country. In the same vein, several FIRs were lodged by the Uttar Pradesh Police under various sections of the I.P.C. at P.S. Gomti Nagar at Lucknow and P.S. Civil Lines at Prayagraj. The FIRs lodged at Lucknow and Prayagraj were all later transferred to the Economic Offence Wing at Lucknow.

3. The contents of the Enforcement Case Information Report (hereinafter referred to as “ECIR”), in a gist, reflects that many real estate projects were floated by various companies under the umbrella of Shine City Group of Companies in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. The said companies is said to have allured the investors to invest in the projects of the companies which promised handsome returns. The company is said to have issued post-dated cheques to instill confidence in the investors, however, as alleged, as and when the said cheques matured for redemption, they were dishonored.

4. It is further alleged that in order to dupe the investors forged documents were shown to the investors in order to instill confidence that the company had a very healthy land bank, however, neither the investors got the plot as promised nor the amount invested was returned.

5. The company is also alleged to have a scheme for investing in its alleged virtual currency titled as 'Shine Victory Coin' which was floated through Shine City Infrastructure Projects Pvt. Ltd though the Company had no authority or approval from its Board of Directors nor from any Government Authority.

6. All the companies, under the umbrella of Shine Group of Companies, were managed by its main director and supremo namely Sri Rasheed Naseem. He was responsible for luring investors by persuading them to invest in a scheme namely 'Bid and Hot Deal'. In the instant ‘bid and hot deal’, the company promised to provide vehicles (two wheeler and four wheelers) to its investors at discounted price, however, despite deposit of money in the said scheme, neither the vehicles were delivered nor the money was returned to the innocent investors and moreover few cheques which were issued towards refund were also dishonored.

7. In the aforesaid fashion, several other schemes were floated inter-alia known as "Project Investment Plan" which was the brain child of one Sri Abhishek Thakur who is alleged to be the President of Garud Team of Shine City Group of Companies. In the aforesaid scheme, the amount invested was to be returned in 12/15 months by giving a plot and needless to say these promises were also not honored. Another scheme known as 'Principal Cash Back' wherein the persons investing the amount was assured of fantastic returns. It is in this light that a huge corpus was collected and siphoned by the Shine City Group of Companies while large number of investors were duped and cheated.

8. The record would reflect that the investigation in the aforesaid scam relating to investments in Shine City Group of Companies is being monitored by a Division Bench of this Court in Criminal Misc. Writ Petition No. 1834 of 2021 (Sri Ram Ram Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others) along with several other connected writ petitions.

9. It is in this context that the Enforcement Directorate, Government of India filed a complaint under Section 44 and 45 of the The PML Act of 2002 for commission of offence of money laundering as defined under Section 3 read with Section 17 of The PML Act of 2002 which is punishable under Section 4 of The PML Act of 2002.

10. The ECIR is on record as Annexure No. 2 with the bail application and it reveals that upon invest