BEFORE RAJESH MALHOTRA, MEMBER; SINGLE BENCH: APPELLATE TRIBUNAL UNDER SAFEMA; AT NEW DELHI.

FPA-PMLA-1872/DLI/2017 Shri Anirudh Narian Aggarwal … Appellant Versus The Deputy Director, ED Delhi … Respondent Advocates/Authorized Representatives who appeared For the Appellant : S/Sh. RP Thakur, Awanish Kumar, Sanket Ambali, Advocates, For the Respondent : Sh. Munindra Dwivedi, Advocate.

FINAL ORDER

20.06.2024 Present appeal U/s 26 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, is filed against the impugned order dated 14.06.2017 passed by the Adjudicating Authority, in Original Application no.78/2017 vide which respondent-ED was permitted to retain the documents and articles seized from the possession of appellant Anirudh Narain Aggarwal, detailed as under:

(i) Five bars of metal yellow in colour, (ii) Five pieces of precious stones appear to be diamond, (iii) One hand written note/pieces of paper showing weight and quality of precious stone.

2. As per the facts of the case, F.I.R No.416/2016 dated 29.11.2016 was registered by the Delhi Police, into alleged case of fraudulently converting demonetized black money into Gold by way of depositing the same in the accounts of front companies having bank account with Axis Bank, Kashmere Gate, Delhi. The offence registered by Delhi Police being a Scheduled offence under PMLA, an ECIR/11/DLZO/2016 dated 30.11.2016 was registered by the ED and started investigation.

During investigation, it is revealed that as a result of demonetization of currency notes of 500/- and 1000/- denomination announced by the Government of India on 08.11.2016, persons having large amount of such notes were looking for avenues to convert their unaccounted demonetized money into monetized form or into bullion/gold using the bank accounts of the front companies.

One Nitin Gupta, Mohit Garg and others conceived the entire scheme and collected the cash from prospective buyers including Sh. Prateek Bansal, who was one of the prospective buyers, who has given Rs. 12 crores (approx.) to Sh. Nitin Gupta for purchasing gold. Sh. Prateek Bansal collected this money from various prospective-buyers, like Anirudh Narain Aggarwal, Ravi Aggarwal (respondents in the case) and others. For this purpose, Nitin Gupta got in touch with Mohit Garg, a person from whom he was taking RTGS in the past also. Mohit Garg got in touch with Rajeev Singh Kushwaha his friend and associate who had been facilitating his transactions in the past also. Both of them agreed to the proposal of Nitin Gupta for a commission @ 15% of total cash deposits. They further connived with the Branch Manager and Manager Operations of Axis Bank Kashmere Gate, Delhi and deposited huge amount of money into the accounts of three front companies controlled by Rajeev Singh Khushwaha namely M/s Sunrise Trading, M/s Himalaya International and M/s RD Traders. After the cash was deposited, RTGS were sent into the accounts of M/s Beagle Marketing another front company of Rajeev Singh and transferred the money to the accounts of importers/suppliers of gold namely, M/s Tusar Jewellers, M/s Aadi Traders, M/s Sidhhi Vinayak, M/s Ganesh Traders and M/s Maa & Sons etc., who in turn showed sale of gold to M/s Beagle Marketing from which they had received RTGS at the prevailing rate. Such gold/diamond was received by Nitin Gupta, Mohit Garg & Prateek Bansal and was distributed to the persons including Sh. Ravi Agarwal and Sh. Anirudh Agarwal who had provided cash to Prateek Bansal and gold bars were also given to bank official namely Sh. Shobhit Sinha, Operation Manager and Sh. Vineet Gupta, Branch Head, as commission.

During investigation statement of various persons including Sh. Ravi Agarwal and Sh. Anirudh Narain Aggarwal were recorded under Section 50 of PMLA and on the basis of the revelations made by Shri Anirudh Narain Agarwal, search was conducted on the residential premises of Sh. Anirudh Pratap Agarwal, and five gold bar of 1 kg. each and five pieces of diamond were recovered un