A special PMLA court on Wednesday discharged Omkar Group promoters Babulal Varma and Kamalkishore Gupta from a money laundering case.
Earlier this month, the accused moved discharge pleas before the special PMLA court through their advocates Vijay Aggarwal and Rahul Agarwal. They cited a July 27 Supreme Court ruling which said that “when there is no scheduled predicate offence, the PMLA case cannot continue.” The predicate offence against the accused, based on which, the ED had registered its money laundering case, was closed.
On August 8, in probably the first such instance, citing the SC guidelines, the special PMLA court granted their plea for interim release. The court had then said that if it cannot try the PMLA case of both accused when there is no predicate offence, certainly it could not continue their judicial custody for an uncertain period. “If the court continues judicial custody, there will be a serious complication in respect of illegal detention,” the special judge had said.
On Wednesday, the court said that the interim orders are made absolute.
Opposing their pleas, the ED had said that this issue is expected to affect several proceedings and pleas will be filed in several courts across the country. The ED said the accused plea was not maintainable and bad in law and they were not permitted to file any such application at the stage of remand or extension of remand.
The ED also submitted that in the same case itself in 2021 the Bombay high court had ruled that once investigation is initiated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), it is independent of any scheduled offence. The high court had said neither compounding nor closure of the original first information report (FIR) of a scheduled offence would affect the PMLA probe.
The duo were arrested over 18 months ago.
In 2021, the ED had submitted its chargesheet against actor and businessman Sachiin Joshi, Omkar Group promoters Babulal Varma, Kamal Kishor Gupta and 14 firms associated with them. Omkar Group promoters allegedly took Rs 410 crore from Yes Bank to construct rehabilitation buildings for slumdwellers under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme at Wadala but diverted the money to their group companies. Joshi allegedly helped Omkar Group for the layering of Rs 87 crore. The loan money was used for other purposes, alleged the ED.
In March 2020, an FIR was registered against Varma and Gupta in Aurangabad for cheating. Based on this predicate offence, a case was later filed against them by the ED. But the police later filed a closure report in the Aurangabad case. The purported victim in the case also gave ‘no objection’ to the closure report. An affidavit was submitted with the report saying the FIR was based on a misunderstanding and the amount due has been paid. The court in Aurangabad accepted the closure report and the matter was disposed of.
