A Delhi court on Saturday granted interim protection from arrest to Ratul Puri, nephew of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, in a money-laundering case connected with the ₹3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal.
Granting the protection till July 29 when his anticipatory bail application would be taken up for hearing, Special Judge Inder Jeet Singh said: “In order to reconcile the circumstances, but without any observation on the merits of the case, it is appropriate to list this application (anticipatory bail application) on 29.07.2019 when the complete record will be presented, and till then the applicant will not be arrested in this case by the Enforcement Directorate.”
However, the accused would join the investigation and cooperate in it, the judge said. Later, Mr. Puri joined the investigation at 5 p.m. at the Directorate’s office.
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Earlier in the day, the accused, through his counsel Vijay Aggarwal, filed an application for anticipatory bail, submitting that he apprehended arrest.
Opposing the application, Special Public Prosecutor of the Directorate N.K. Matta asked the reasons that had created the sudden apprehension in the mind of the accused as he had been joining the probe since February.
When Mr. Matta sought time to file a reply to the application, counsel for the accused sought interim protection till his plea for bail was taken up for hearing by Special Judge Arvind Kumar who is seized of the case. The Judge allowed his plea and granted protection.
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In the bail application, the accused said he came to know that he would be arrested by the probe agency when he came out of the Directorate’s office for lunch after being interrogated by them on July 26.
Mr. Puri was informed by someone that the Directorate officials had visited his house and office and told persons available there that they were going to arrest him, the application alleged, adding that the apprehension was also triggered by recent political developments in Madhya Pradesh where two BJP MLAs voted in favour of the Congress government on a Bill.
But Mr. Matta dismissed the allegations as false.