Allahabad High Court Quashes Condition Of Anticipatory Bail Imposed On Accused To Deposit ₹2.5 Cr In PMLA Case

The Allahabad High Court quashed a condition imposed on an accused while granting anticipatory bail, to pay Rs. 2.5 crores in money laundering case.

The Court was dealing with an application filed by the accused under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

A Single Bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Singh said, “Having heard the submissions of learned counsel for the parties and perusing the record, I find that in the light of judgments of the Apex Court as discussed above, the Condition No. 1 of anticipatory bail order dated 18.01.2024 is not sustainable and the same is liable to be quashed.”

Advocate Vinayak Mittal appeared on behalf of the applicant/accused while Advocate Jitendra Prasad Mishra appeared on behalf of the opposite party/Enforcement Directorate (ED).

In this case, the applicant was granted anticipatory bail vide an order passed by the Special Judge, Anti-Corruption, CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), Ghaziabad. The Judge imposed six conditions and the applicant was aggrieved by the condition no. 1 imposed upon her while granting anticipatory bail which was as follows –

"That the applicant/accused will deposit the said amount of Rs. 2.5 crore along with 10% simple interest for every year from the date of receipt of said amount i.e. 25.09.2018, in the court within one month of passing of this order."

The instant application under Section 482 of CrPC was preferred by the applicant with a prayer to set aside the above condition imposed by the court of Special Judge arising out of a case under Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).

The High Court after hearing both sides, referred to the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Sumit Mehta v. State (N.C.T. of Delhi), (2013) 15 SCC 570 in which the only point for consideration was whether the condition of depositing an amount of Rs. 1,00,00,000/- in fixed deposit for anticipatory bail was sustainable in law and whether such condition was outside the purview of Section 438 of the Code. The Supreme Court in this case had held: “The words "any condition" used in the provision should not be regarded as conferring absolute power on a court of law to impose any condition that it chooses to impose.”

Accordingly, the High Court allowed the application and quashed the condition no. 1 imposed by the Special Judge.

Cause Title- Meena Anand v. Directorate of Enforcement Government of India (Neutral Citation: 2024:AHC:56482)

Appearance:

Applicant: Advocate Vinayak Mittal

Opposite Party: Advocates Jitendra Prasad Mishra and Pawan Kumar Srivastava.

Click here to read/download the Judgment