Money laundering case against Jet Airways creator Naresh Goyal was overturned by the Bombay High Court
The Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the money laundering case against Jet Airways creator Naresh Goyal was overturned by the Bombay High Court on February 16.
The ECIR dated February 20, 2020, the inquiry, and all proceedings and actions stemming from the ECIR against Goyal were all quashed by a division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and PK Chavan on the grounds that they were illegal and unconstitutional.
The ruling was reached in response to petitions Naresh Goyal, the founder of Jet Airways, and his wife Anita Goyal submitted to have the ECIR nullified.
On the strength of a first information report (FIR) submitted by the Mumbai police in February 2020 in response to a complaint made by Akbar Travels, the ECIR against Goyals was filed.
Naresh and Anita Goyal were charged in the FIR with forgery, criminal plot, and cheating under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The airline firm canceled flight operations beginning in October 2018, according to the travel agency, which claimed to have suffered a loss of over 46 crores.
The petition stated that the ECIR had been opened as a result of a complaint made to the Mumbai police in 2018. The petition was submitted through the team at Naik Naik & Co. headed by attorneys Ameet Naik and Abhishek Kale.
The police submitted a closure report in March 2020, concluding that there was no merit to the criminal complaint and that the conflict appeared to be of a civil character.
This was approved by a Metropolitan Magistrate Court, and the Supreme Court upheld it in defiance of the ED’s objections.
They then filed a motion with the High Court to have the ECIR quashed because the underlying offense was not proven.
The High Court prohibited forced action against the Goyals in January of this year.
On February 22, the ED opposed the plea, claiming that the ECIR could not be invalidated because it was an internal, confidential piece of paper and not a statutory record.
The submission, however, did not impress the Court, and on February 15, it was asked what would remain if the scheduled offense that served as the foundation for registering an ECIR had been resolved.
The court had asked ED whether it could quash an ECIR or not, especially in light of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s statement in another case before the Supreme Court that an ECIR by ED would not survive after acceptance of the closure report in the predicate offense. The hearing had been postponed.
After hearing from the parties, the court moved to nullify the ECIR.
News Mania Desk
