Developer Avinash Bhosale, of Pune, was granted bail by the Bombay High Court on Wednesday. He is one of the defendants in a money laundering case brought by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in relation to a loan “fraud” case involving Yes Bank and Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL) totalling more than Rs 4,000 crore.
In May of this year, the Bombay High Court granted bail to Bhosale of the ABIL group in a case filed by the CBI, which was the predicate offence on which the ED had filed its complaint.
In addition to other requirements, a one-judge panel led by Justice Manish M. Pitale ordered Bhosale’s release on bond upon the provision of a Rs. 1 lakh personal bond and equivalent sureties.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the applicant is not guilty of the offences for which he is being prosecuted in the present case,” the bench stated. It further stated that as he had already been granted bail for prior offences, he met the two requirements for bail under section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The bench took note of the substantive argument made by senior attorney Aabad Ponda on behalf of bail petitioner Bhosale, who was detained for more than two years starting in June 2022, arguing that there was “virtually no possibility” that the trial would be finished in a fair amount of time. Bhosale had argued that the longest sentence allowed by the PMLA for him would be seven years in prison.
The bench observed that the prosecution planned to question 70 witnesses in the CBI case and 187 witnesses in the ED case. The CBI case was linked to the ED case about the predicate offence. The bench stated, “There is very little chance that the trial will even start, and as a result, there is very little chance that it will be finished in a reasonable amount of time.”
“The applicant is justified in this context in asserting his fundamental right to a speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution,” the judgement stated. It went on to say that Bhosale “deserves to be enlarged on bail” as the law established by the Supreme Court in the Manish Sisodia v. CBI case was “absolutely clear” and his reliance on it was warranted.
In its third supplemental chargesheet, the ED said that the applicant was in possession of criminal profits. It had claimed that starting in April 2018, DHFL had obtained a loan of Rs 3,983 crore from Yes Bank for investments.
According to the government agency, the aforementioned sum was paid out on a recurring basis with the understanding that the DHFL would return about Rs 600 crore to the bank’s proprietors. According to the report, Bhosale may be prosecuted under the PMLA as some of the money went to co-accused developer Sanjay Chhabria of Radius Group and the proceeds of the crime were then transferred to him through three transactions.
