A city court has discharged an accused in an alleged Rs 354-crore bank fraud-linked money laundering case involving Ratul Puri, the businessman nephew of senior Congress leader Kamal Nath.

There is “no iota of legally admissible evidence” against the accused, Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal said as he dropped the charges against Nitin Bhatnagar, a Maltese citizen and former relationship manager of the Bank of Singapore.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had alleged that Bhatnagar was involved in the “layering of the proceeds of crime” for Ratul Puri.

In an order passed on Saturday, Judge Aggarwal said, “It cannot be said accused may have committed the offence i.E. To say matter should go to the trial. That is to say, the prosecution has failed to make out a prima facie case for framing of charges qua this accused, for which he was being prosecuted by filing the prosecution complaint.”

He asked why would the accused to go through rigours of trial all the way if there was no suspicion.

When there is no iota of legally admissible evidence against him to go for trial, doing so would be itself violative of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, as the same cannot be said to be the procedure established by law,” Judge Aggarwal said.

The bench accepted the arguments made by senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, appearing for Bhatnagar, that no suspicion arose about the accused committing the offence of money laundering. 

Bhatnagar was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on August 22 last year.

The money laundering case stems from an August, 2019 FIR of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) where it was alleged that the company Moser Baer India Ltd. (MBIL) and its promoters allegedly cheated and defrauded the loan taken from the Central Bank of India to the tune of Rs 354.51 crore.  The case was registered after the bank sent a complaint to the CBI.

Both the CBI and the ED had booked Ratul Puri, his father Deepak Puri, mother Nita (Kamal Nath’s sister).  Ratul Puri was arrested by the ED in this case in 2019 and is now out on bail.

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

Ratul Puri was booked in this case in his capacity as the then executive director of MBIL, a firm promoted by his father Deepak Puri.

The company was involved in the manufacture of optical storage media such as compact discs, DVDs, solid state storage devices.

The ED had earlier alleged Bhatnagar “facilitated” opening of a bank account for a company called Pristine River Investments Ltd (a Dubai-based investment holding company) in the Bank of Singapore, as he was its relationship manager.

This bank account was opened in April, 2011 “on the direction of Ratul Puri”, the ED had claimed and said the company was owned by Savannah Trust of which Ratul Puri was the “settler”.

It alleged Pristine River Investments Ltd was used for “layering” the proceeds of crime and Bhatnagar “knowingly assisted in doing so for the main accused Ratul Puri”.

During the arguments, Pahwa submitted that Bhatnagar has not been named in the predicate offence or FIR lodged by the CBI.

He was only working as a relationship manager in the Bank of Singapore and was not controlling any of the corporate entities involved in any of the above-mentioned transactions, the counsel said.