Finance
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, directors of Gurugram-based realty group M3M, in a money laundering case.
A bench of justices A S Bopanna and Sanjay Kumar, which had reserved the verdict on September 11 after hearing submissions of lawyers, granted the relief to the directors of the realty firm.
The Bansals had moved the top court against the July 20 order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had dismissed their bail pleas, saying the case is quite serious in nature.
The Enforcement Directorate earlier arrested Basant and Pankaj Bansal in connection with the money laundering probe linked to the alleged bribery case.
The top court on August 11 had sought responses from the Centre and the Enforcement Directorate on the bail plea of the accused directors against the high court order refusing to release them on bail in the ED’s probe linked to an alleged bribery case against a former judge.
In April, the anti-corruption bureau of the Haryana Police filed an FIR against Sudhir Parmar, a former special judge for ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases posted in Panchkula, along with his nephew and a third M3M group director, Roop Kumar Bansal. They have arrested Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal in connection with this money laundering case.
According to the FIR, the ED stated that they received credible information, asserting that Parmar was allegedly showing “favouritism” towards the accused. These individuals included Roop Kumar Bansal, his brother Basant Bansal, and real estate firm IREO owner Lalit Goyal. Parmar allegedly displayed this favoritism in the ED and CBI cases pending against them in his court.
Parmar was suspended by the Punjab and Haryana High Court after the registration of the ACB case.
