A Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) special court, Panchkula, on Thursday rejected the bail application moved by the managing director of real estate development company IREO, Lalit Goyal, who is presently in jail in a money laundering case.
Goyal had sought bail on medical grounds. The Enforcement Directorate opposed the bail plea by arguing that after grant of bail in June 2021, Goyal allegedly destroyed the evidence by deleting data, chats and messages from his phone.
He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on July 4 in a money-laundering case linked to a corruption case against suspended Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADJ) Sudhir Parmar.
Goyal was first arrested in 2021 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a ‘multi-crore real estate scam’. He was granted regular bail by the apex court on medical grounds.
Lalit Goyal was named as accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ED in cases pending before the special CBI and Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) courts.
Role of accused Judge
Additional District and Sessions Judge Sudhir Parmar was earlier presiding over as the special CBI and PMLA judge at Panchkula. The case under Prevention of Corruption Act against Parmar was registered by Haryana anti-corruption bureau (ACB) on April17 . He allegedly favoured real estate developers Roop Bansal and his brother Basant Bansal of realty firm M3M Group and Lalit Goyal of IREO Group.
Parmar was placed under suspension on April 27 by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Based on the ACB FIR, the ED had started investigations under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after registering an enforcement case information report (ECIR) on June 13 . According to the enforcement case information report, reliable information was received that Parmar, who was then posted as a special judge for CBI and ED cases in Panchkula, showed favouritism to Roop Kumar Bansal, his brother Basant Bansal (the owners of M3M), and Lalit Goyal (the owner of IREO Group). Criminal cases of ED under PMLA and other cases of CBI were pending against the accused individuals in Parmar’s court.
It was alleged Parmar received undue benefits through his relative, Ajay Parmar. The FIR further mentioned that reliable information indicated instances of grave misconduct, abuse of official position, and acceptance of undue advantage by Parmar from the accused individuals in the cases pending in his court.
Others accused in the case
The ED has listed the Gurugram properties of Parmar’s relatives worth Rs 7.59 crore as proceeds of crime in its chargesheet filed in the case on August 11 . The seven persons named in the chargesheet include Ajay Parmar, Paramveer Singh and Pushpa Devi (relatives of the judge), Rohit Tomar, owner of R Sai Transport Company, Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal (promoters of M3M Group) and Lalit Goyal, MD of IREO Group.
The ED said it has independently proved the allegations in the FIR that IREO and M3M paid Rs five crore to Parmar and further, an amount of Rs five – Rs seven crore was being negotiated for favours in the case.
The ED said loans were availed of and properties were purchased after the case of Lalit Goyal was listed before the court of Parmar in January 2022. The ED claims that M3M knew that they would be accused in the supplementary chargesheet in the IREO case as Rs 400 crore was received from IREO in the Bhiwani land deal.