Point of Law: Economic Offence - Refusal to grant pre-arrest bail - Petitioner has made out no case for his release on pre-arrest bail, more particularly when present is prima-facie not a case where allegations brought against petitioner can be said to be frivolous or groundless.

JUDGMENT :

SATRUGHANA PUJAHARI, J.

1. Being apprehensive of his arrest by the C.B.I. in connection with PMLA Case No. 148 of 2019 on the file of the Special Court under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 (hereinafter referred to as the “PMLA Act”) Bhubaneswar registered pursuant to an order of commitment passed in R.C. Case No. 31(S) of 2014-Kol. under Section 44(1)(c) of the PMLA Act, by the learned Special C.J.M. (CBI), Bhubaneswar, the petitioner has filed the present application under Section 438 of Cr.P.C. seeking pre-arrest bail.

2. Heard Shri Debasish Panda, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner, Shri Sarthak Nayak, learned counsel appearing for the Republic of India and Shri Gopal Agarwal, learned counsel appearing for the Enforcement Directorate.

3. For the purpose at hand, a brief reference may be made to the background facts as follows:-

Ponzi Companies, many in number, got flourished in the Eastern States of India, basically in Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Tripura and Bihar, which instigated public through different schemes, to deposit/invest money, with false assurance of impressive returns. Being allured by such lucrative assurance, lacs of gullible depositors parted with their hard earned money with those ponzi firms, who though at initial stage paid some returns, later on after collecting huge amounts of money from public, disappeared from the scene to the dismay and detriment of the depositors. It is alleged that those ponzi firms were able to operate their network and duped lacs of gullible depositors, under the patronage of political and other influential people of the Society. On the reports of the victims and otherwise, cases were registered and the Investigating Agencies of the respective States handled the investigation. However, in compliance with the order dated 09.05.2014 passed by the Supreme Court of India in two writ petitions, such as, W.P. (Civil) No. 401 of 2013 and W.P. (Civil) No. 413 of 2013, total forty-four number of such cases were taken over/registered by the then C.B.I./S.C./C.I.T./KOL (now renamed as C.B.I./EO-IV-Kol.) and the present case, i.e. R.C. 31(S) of 2014 is one amongst those forty-four cases. It may be mentioned here that the present case had earlier been registered in Odisha vide EOW/Odisha/BBSR P.S. Case No. 13 dated 06.05.2013 on the basis of a report lodged by one Rabi Narayan Swain, and the C.B.I. on taking over the said case registered the same as R.C. 31(S) of 2014 on 05.06.2014 against Sudipta Sen and others of “Saradha Group of Industries” for the offences under Sections 120-B read with Sections 406 and 420 of IPC and Sections 4, 5 and 6 of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act, 1973, and submitted charge-sheet on 13.12.2016 in the Court of the Special C.J.M. (CBI), Bhubaneswar, under Section 120-B read with Sections 420 and 409 of IPC and Sections 4, 5 and 6 of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act, 1973 against Sudipta Sen, Debjani Mukherjee, M/s. Saradha Reality (India) Limited, M/s. Saradha Tour and Travels Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. Saradha Housing Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. Saradha Garden Resort Hotel Pvt. Ltd. keeping open further investigation in view of Section 173(8) of Cr.P.C. The said case has been committed to the PMLA Court, i.e. the Court of the District & Sessions Judge, Bhubaneswar-cum-Special Judge under the PMLA Act within the State of Odisha, pursuant to the application filed by the Enforcement Directorate.

The present petitioner is a journalist who earlier happened to be the Director and share-holder of Disha Productions and Multimedia Pvt. Ltd. (DPMPL). As reported, he ceased to be the share-holder and Director of DPMPL since January, 2013, and presently he is continuing as the Chief Editor of ‘Ae Samay’ a Bengali newspaper. He was arrested in another case bearing No. R.C. 45(S) of 2014 registered in Odisha against another Ponzi Company, namely “I-Core EServices Ltd.” and in that connection during a search cond