Judge’s trial in corruption case transferred to PMLA court

Chandigarh: The additional district and sessions court in Panchkula transferred the trial of a corruption case involving a former special judge of the CBI court, Sudhir Parmar, to the special court for PMLA cases and CBI in Panchkula.The orders to commit the trial of the case registered by the erstwhile anti-corruption bureau (ACB) of Haryana came from the court of additional district and sessions judge Himanshu Singh.
Roob Bansal, one of the directors of the M3M group of companies and one of the accused in the case, had filed an application for the order. The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) had opposed the application, claiming that the authority concerned did not approach the court for transfer of the case to a special judge. The court, however, did not accept this argument and allowed the application. "Here in the present matter, the concerned authority, for reasons best known to it, did not move any application so far in consonance with the provisions of Section 41(1)(c) of the PMLA, 2002. In these circumstances, merely because the application in hand is moved by one of the accused persons, the provisions of Section 44(1)(c) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 cannot be altogether ignored with regard to the commitment of the case relating to the scheduled offence to the learned special court which took cognisance of the complaint of the offence of money laundering under Section 44(b) of PMLA 2002," the ADJ observed while directing that the case be shifted to the court of Special Judge Rajiv Goyal.In April 2023, ACB had booked Roop Bansal, Sudhir Parmar, his nephew Ajay Parmar, and Lalit Goyal in the corruption case.During the investigation, evidence was collected regarding the alleged receipt of undue benefit by Parmar, the then special judge, CBI, who remained in contact with owners of the M3M Group through his nephew Ajay Parmar and communicated with Roop Bansal, the promoter/owner of the M3M Group, through various social media platforms. After completion of the investigation, the challan was presented, and the same was assigned to this court.Copies of the report under Section 173 of CrPC were supplied to the accused persons, namely Sudhir Parmar, Ajay Parmar, Roop Bansal, Anil Bhalla, and Lalit Goyal.Meanwhile, the Special PMLA court chaired by Rajiv Goyal also took cognisance of the chargesheet filed by the ED in the money laundering case linked to this and started the trial. Consequently, Roop Bansal moved an application to shift the trial of the corruption case to the Special Court. MSID:: 127911960 413 |