A Delhi court on Tuesday refused to grant anticipatory bail to Ratul Puri, nephew of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, in a money laundering case connected to the ₹3,600 crore AugustaWestland VVIP chopper deal.
Dismissing his bail application, Special Judge Arvind Kumar said: “Keeping in view the fact that investigation, in the matter in hand, is at a crucial stage, especially as regards the role played by the accused/applicant Ratul Puri coupled with the evidence collected so far by the Enforcement Directorate and considering the serious nature of the allegations, gravity of offence and alleged conduct of the accused, I do not consider it to be a fit case for grant of anticipatory bail. The application for the anticipatory bail is therefore dismissed.”
Drawing the attention of the court to the conduct of the accused, Special Public Prosecutors of the directorate D.P. Singh and N.K. Matta submitted that the accused had suddenly disappeared midway through his interrogation on July 26 and the very next day applied for anticipatory bail. It showed that his conduct was not bona fide so far the investigation was concerned, they submitted.
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Seeking bail, counsel for the accused submitted that his client had supplied “tuck-load” of documents and about 80 of his employees had joined the investigation. There was no apprehension of his client fleeing the country or influencing witnesses or tampering with evidence if granted bail, the counsel argued.
His counsel further argued that Mr. Puri was not named as an accused either in the main complaint filed in 2014 or in the four supplementary complaints filed later. The CBI had filed a final report in the main case and Mr. Puri had not been named an accused in this case either, he submitted
Accused’s counsel further argued that all those persons who were made accused in the money laundering case are either on bail or were never arrested.
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