Punjab: PMLA court denies bail to AAP MLA Gajjanmajra
AAP MLA Jaswant Singh Gajjanmajra also approached Punjab and Haryana high court challenging his arrest and remand order but the same were dismissed by the HC following which he approached the apex court.
Special PMLA court in Mohali on Monday denied bail to Amargarh Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Jaswant Singh Gajjanmajra in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act case pertaining to alleged ₹40 crore bank fraud.
MLA, 63, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under section 19 of the PMLA, 2002 on November 6, 2023.
The accused is still in judicial custody.
Bail plea
Seeking bail, the counsel for the MLA contended that Tara Corporation (later renamed Malaudh Agro Limited) was mainly involved in the trading of raw materials and cattle feed.
It was averred that the applicant was a director in the company merely being an elder member of the family but had no role to play in the day-to-day.
The company had availed a credit facility from the Bank of India to the tune of ₹35 crore, which was subsequently raised to ₹46 crore. The accounts were initially regularly serviced and due repayments were made reducing the outstanding balance to around ₹40.5 crore.
“Due to circumstances beyond control, which led to a fall in the market demand, the company’s account was declared as a non-performing asset (NPA). On account of factors beyond control, as the mortgaged land could not be put on sale on account of the issue relating to the conversion of land use (CLU), the OTS schedule could not be adhered to and the bank got the company’s account declared as a ‘willful defaulter’. The decision of ‘willful defaulter’ was challenged before the Punjab and Haryana high court and the same was allowed”, MLA’s counsel submitted adding that the MLA failed to appear before ED despite three summons due to poor health.
Following the bank’s complaint, the CBI registered a cheating and criminal conspiracy case on March 28, 2012. Treating CBI’s FIR as a schedule/predicate offence, ED registered a case under PMLA dated May 23, 2022.
Loan money routed through bogus entities: ED
APS Pathania, special public prosecutor for the ED opposed the bail application stating that M/s Tara Corporation Limited through its directors, availed a loan of ₹35 crore and ₹6 crore from Bank of India, Model Town Branch, Ludhiana. At the time of sanctioning of the loan to M/s TCL, Jaswant Singh, Balwant Singh, Kulwant Singh and Tejinder Singh were its directors.
“The loan amount availed fraudulently through criminal conspiracy and cheating was layered by routing through accounts of various associated entities/companies and other bogus entities by the accused persons through a web of transactions and ultimately the funds were diverted and siphoned off. M/s TCL entered into sham business transactions with entities i.e. M/s Dev Trading Company, M/s Abhishek Trading Company and Palson Traders, which were controlled by the directors of M/s TCL”, Pathania averred.
Dismissing the bail plea, the court stated that on the date of his apprehension, the bail applicant was working in his office at Malerkotla in a healthy condition and thus there was no reason for not appearing before the ED despite summoning.
The said court observed that Gajjanmajra also approached Punjab and Haryana high court challenging his arrest and remand order but the same were dismissed by the HC following which he approached the apex court.
“There is no medical record to show that the bail applicant is suffering from any serious cardiac, diabetes or cervical spondylitis related problem”, Mohali court said while dismissing MLA’s bail plea.