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Filing an application under Section 17(4) before the Adjudicating Authority does not ipso facto permit the ED to retain the seized property unless it also complies with the requirements of Section 20. Failure to do so would amount to a violation of the express procedure established by law.
The case began with a search and seizure by the Enforcement Directorate under Section 37 of FEMA at the petitioners’ premises and during the operation, the petitioners allegedly confessed to illegal hawala transactions worth ₹3,500 crore routed abroad using fabricated documents to remit money to their companies in Hong Kong and Canada.
A plain reading of Section 32A IBC reveals that once a resolution plan is approved under Section 31, the Corporate Debtor shall not be prosecuted for an offence committed prior to the commencement of the CIRP. However, this immunity does not extend to the erstwhile officers and persons responsible for the conduct of its business prior to CIRP.
An entire syndicate with established network and properly defined roles exists and operates at different levels, which, when taken into consideration in entirety, clearly indicates that the proceeds of crime are more than Rs. 1 Crore.
Special statutes have stringent conditions for grant of bail but they should not become means to detain the accused without there being any possibility of concluding the trial, expeditiously. Merely charging an accused person under the provisions of these special statutes should not become a punishment in itself which violates Article 21.
Both the applicants have been released once on interim bail and during that period no incident has been alleged by the respondent to have occurred wherein the applicants have tried to tamper with evidence or influence witnesses.