Punjab and Haryana high court orders release of M3M director

While quashing the arrest orders, the bench of Justice Arun Palli and Justice Vikram Aggarwal made it clear that the arrest could not be sustained following the non-conveying of the grounds of arrest in writing by the ED

Money laundering case

The HC order comes in the wake of the apex court’s recent judgment that the ED, at the time of arrest, would have to furnish to the accused in writing the grounds of arrest, and failure to do so would render the arrest illegal. (Getty Images/Purestock)

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday ordered the release of real estate firm M3M director Roop Bansal, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on June 8 in a 2021 money laundering case.

While quashing the arrest orders, the bench of Justice Arun Palli and Justice Vikram Aggarwal made it clear that the arrest could not be sustained following the non-conveying of the grounds of arrest in writing by the ED.

The HC order comes in the wake of the apex court’s recent judgment that the ED, at the time of arrest, would have to furnish to the accused in writing the grounds of arrest, and failure to do so would render the arrest illegal. ED in the case in hand had not supplied the ground of arrest to him in writing.

In the case at hand, Lalit Goyal, the managing director of the real estate development company IREO, was first arrested in 2021 following multiple FIRs from allottees of residential projects developed by the IREO group of cheating, etc. After ED stepped in 2021, it allegedly found that in addition to identified ‘proceeds of crime’ of ₹1,376 crores, IREO group had further diverted its funds of more than ₹400 crores through M3M Group of companies with its managing director, Basant Bansal, and directors, his brother, Roop Bansal and his son, Pankaj Bansal.

The ED registered a second enforcement case information report (ECIR) on June 13, with the three Bansal family members as accused. This case is linked to a corruption case FIR registered by the Haryana anti-corruption bureau in April 2023 also involved Sudhir Parmar, former special judge, CBI and ED, Panchkula and his nephew Ajay Parmar.