On Saturday, the Delhi court granted bail to Rajesh Joshi and Gautam Malhotra in the money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. 

The bench headed by Special CBI Judge MK Nagpal directed to grant bail to both accused. While granting bail, the bench observed, noting that the evidence against them cannot be considered to be incriminating enough to justify the attraction of bar and rigours of Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) or their continued detention and denial of bail.

During the trials, ED had argued that Rajesh Joshi was an associate of Vijay Nair and was involved in the transfer of advance kickbacks of around ₹30 crores received from the ‘South lobby’ to Nair.

It was further alleged that he was responsible for channelising the kickbacks through expenditures borne by AAP in its Goa election campaign.

For Gautam Malhotra, it was noted that he formed a cartel by participating in the liquor business in the city on all three levels; manufacturing, wholesale, and retail. The ED also said that Malhotra paid nearly ₹2.5 crores as a bribe.

“Again, no statement of even any hawala operator alleged to have been involved in these transactions has been recorded and produced before the court nor any record seized from any such hawala operator in connection with transmission of the above amount has been shown to the court. Moreover, the applicant himself has also admittedly not made any incriminating depositions in his statements made U/S 50 of the PMLA and recorded by the ED officials,” the court noted.

“It added that there is nothing to show that cash received by Joshi’s company is connected with the kickbacks. It can be observed that the alleged kickback amount is very huge i.e. around Rs. 100 crores and even a huge amount of around Rs. 20-30 crores is alleged to have been transferred through this applicant, whereas the payments which were allegedly made by him for the election related jobs are for meagre amount in lacs.”

“Further, it is the admitted case of the prosecution that this applicant had not played any role in formulating the above excise policy and was not even a part of the South lobby paying advance kickbacks of Rs. 100 crores. Again, he is also not alleged to have paid any such advance kickbacks to the co-accused Vijay Nair, other politicians of AAP or the other public servants before or in connection with formulation of the said policy.”

It finally concluded that neither of the two accused can be considered to be flight risks and there are no reasonable chances of destruction/tampering of evidence or of influencing the witnesses.

The ED was represented through Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain and Special Public Prosecutor NK Matta. They were assisted by advocates Vivek Gurnani, Baibhav, Kavish Gairach and Kartik Sabharwal.