Chopper scam: Delhi court allows 6-day ED custody of Ratul Puri

A Delhi Court Tuesday allowed the custodial interrogation of Ratul Puri, nephew of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, for six days, in the money laundering case related to a bank loan fraud.

Special Judge Sanjay Garg also directed that Puri be given proper medical attention during his remand.

"Fourteen days custody remand of the accused has been sought by the ED in order to unearth the larger conspiracy, find out the money trail of proceeds of crime, find out the involvement of other unknown accused persons and confront the accused with documents. Considering the overall facts and circumstances, six days custody remand of the accused is granted," the court said.

ED, which arrested Puri Tuesday morning in the money laundering case, sought his 14-day custodial interrogation.

The agency told the court that Puri was evading probe in the case.

"He is known to be evasive and non cooperative. The way he was avoiding, we had no other option but to arrest him. Auditor's report makes it clear that there was siphoning of money. From AugustaWestland accused Susen Mohan Gupta's diaries, it was found that there was a huge amount of unaccounted money. We need custodial interrogation to decipher these," the agency told the court.

It said that the trail of money was to be found and the proceeds of crime was also to be identified.

There is another money laundering case connected with VVIP chopper (AugustaWestland) scam in which the Delhi High Court Tuesday dismissed his anticipatory bail plea, saying his custodial interrogation was "required for an effective investigation".

In the trial court, Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, appearing for Puri, opposed the ED's plea in the case arising out of the bank fraud scam, saying the arrest was "illegal".

"Sushen Mohan was arrested in AugustaWestland case. He (Puri) was already having interim protection from arrest by the High Court till today, still they arrested me yesterday while I had the protection. The arrest is illegal," he said.

Ratul Puri was placed under arrest under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the bank fraud related case late Monday night after he appeared before the central probe agency here in the chopper scam case after it slapped a fresh criminal case against him and others, taking cognisance of a CBI FIR filed last week.

The latest PMLA case emerged from a CBI FIR of August 17, where Ratul Puri, his father Deepak Puri, mother Nita (Nath's sister) and others were booked in connection with a Rs 354 crore bank fraud case filed by the Central Bank of India.

The CBI had carried out multiple searches in pursuance of this FIR on Sunday.

The Puri family, other individuals like Sanjay Jain and Vineet Sharma were booked by the CBI for alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and corruption.

Ratul Puri was booked in this case in his capacity as executive director of Moser Baer India Limited (MBIL), a firm promoted by his father Deepak Puri.

The company is involved in the manufacture of optical storage media like compact discs, DVDs, solid state storage devices.

Ratul Puri had resigned from the post of executive director in 2012, while his parents continue to be on the board, the bank had said in a statement and compliant to the CBI.

The company (Moser Baer) was taking loans from various banks since 2009 and went for debt restructuring a number of times, the bank has alleged in the complaint which is now part of the CBI FIR.

When it was unable to pay the debt, a forensic audit was done and the the account was declared as "fraud" by the Central Bank of India on April 20, 2019, it has alleged.

"...The MBIL has committed fraud and cheated the complainant bank thereby making a wrongful gain to themselves and a wrongful loss to the lender bank which is a custodian of public money," the complaint to the CBI said.

The bank claimed that the company and its directors forged and fabricated documents to induce the Central Bank of India to release funds.

"MBIL has caused unlawful loss to our bank to the tune of Rs 354.51 crore as on November 29, 2014 and interest thereon by getting unlawful gains," the complaint said.

Ratul Puri is facing criminal investigation by three main central probe agencies, ED, CBI and the Income Tax department.

The tax department has attached a number of his alleged 'benami' assets in the recent past and has charged him with benefiting from the purported kickbacks generated in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP choppers deal case, cancelled by India in 2014 on charges of corruption.

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