A Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) special court, Panchkula, summoned report qua current health/medical condition of Lalit Goyal, managing director of the IREO group, who is presently lodged in jail in a money laundering case.
Goyal was arrested by the enforcement directorate (ED) in a money laundering case linked to corruption against suspended Haryana judicial officer Sudhir Parmar.
During the hearing of arguments on bail plea moved by Goyal, on Wednesday, special judge Rajeev Goyal directed the medical officer, Central Jail, Ambala City, to file a report regarding the present health/medical condition of Lalit Goyal on or before August 9.
The report was summoned after Goyal’s counsel argued that Punjab and Haryana high court had granted Goyal bail “primarily on medical grounds”.
Goyal’ counsel argued that he needs urgent medical treatment and thus made a request to the court to call a status report regarding his current health/medical condition.
The ED opposed by arguing that the current medical condition of Goyal would be immaterial in the face of fact that after grant of bail in June 2021 he allegedly destroyed the evidence by deleting data, chats and messages from his phone. The ED urged the court that instead of seeking report from jail authorities, the court must direct Goyal to undergo medical examination at PGIMS, Chandigarh, and get a report regarding his medical condition.
The court held, “In case, necessity of medical examination of Goyal from PGIMS, Chandigarh, will be felt at any stage of hearing of the bail application, necessary order in that regard shall be passed.”
{{/usCountry}}The court held, “In case, necessity of medical examination of Goyal from PGIMS, Chandigarh, will be felt at any stage of hearing of the bail application, necessary order in that regard shall be passed.”
{{/usCountry}}On April 17, Haryana anti-corruption bureau (ACB) registered a case under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act against a judicial officer of additional district and sessions rank, Sudhir Parmar, for allegedly favouring real estate developers Roop Bansal and his brother Basant Bansal of M3M and Lalit Goyal of IREO group, as per the ACB’s FIR. Parmar, who was placed under suspension on April 27 by the high court, was presiding over as the special CBI and PMLA judge at Panchkula.
Based on the ACB FIR, the ED had started investigations under the PMLA after registering an enforcement case information report (ECIR) on June 13.
Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal were arrested by the ED and so was the nephew, Ajay Parmar, of the judicial officer. Goyal was first arrested in 2021 by the ED in a ‘multi-crore real estate scam’, but in April 2022 was granted regular bail by the apex court on medical grounds.
Notice to ED on Roop Bansal’s bail
The court also issued a notice to the ED on a bail application moved by Roop Bansal, M3M India director. The ED is likely to file a reply in this regard on August 8.
Roop Bansal was arrested on June 8 by the ED subsequent to initiation of the PMLA investigations based on multiple FIRs registered against IREO group. The investigations done by the ED, however, revealed that a huge amount of money running in hundreds of crores was siphoned off through M3M group also.