NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court, on Tuesday, granted regular bail to Ankush Jain and Vaibhav Jain in connection with a money laundering case linked to former Delhi minister and AAP leader, Satyendar Jain.
“In a situation such as the present case, where there are multiple accused persons, thousands of pages of evidence to assess, scores of witnesses to be examined and the trial is not expected to end anytime in the near future and the delay is not attributable to the accused, keeping the accused in custody by using Section 45 PMLA a tool for incarceration or as a shackle is not permissible,” read the court order by Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri.
The court further said that the liberty of an accused cannot be curtailed by Section 45 without taking all other germane considerations into account.
“While dealing with the cases under the PMLA that, except in a few exceptional cases, the maximum sentence can be of seven years. The accused in a money laundering case cannot be equated with those punishable with death, imprisonment for life, ten years or more like offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, murder, cases of rape, dacoity, etc,” the court said.
The ED alleged that Ankush and Vaibhav Jain played a crucial role in laundering money for Satyendar Jain by concealing his assets under their names.
