Hyderabad: Justice Shamim Akther of the Telangana High Court has dismissed a plea from director Sukesh Gupta of MBS Jewellers to quash the EICR case registered against him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The case related to purchase of gold from MMTC, a public sector enterprise, and causing loss to the latter of the order of Rs 194 crore in connivance with MMTC officials.
Sukesh Gupta requested the court to quash the case and to stay the further proceedings like issuing of summons on him.
Justice Akther said the modus operandi adopted by the petitioner in causing wrongful loss to MMTC in active connivance with MMTC officials was specifically mentioned in the complaint as well as in the charge sheet filed by the CBI. Such economic frauds “adversely affected the financial and economic wellbeing of the nation and have implications that are beyond the domain of a mere dispute between the petitioner and MMTC.”
The judge also observed that Gupta chose to file a quash petition instead of cooperating with the investigation, and this seemed to be an attempt to escape from his criminal liability, if any.
Referring to the Supreme Court observations on inherent powers of high courts in quashing the cases, Justice Akther said that in a catena of judgments, the apex court had held that it was not proper for a high court to exercise its inherent powers under Section 482 of Cr.PC, in relation to economic offences.
It said this was nothing but stalling an investigation or enquiry initiated by the authorized officer under the provisions of PMLA. At the initial stage of issuance of the process, it is not open to the courts to stifle the proceedings by entering into the merits of the case. Hence, an enquiry has to be held to find out the truth.
Basing upon the complaint lodged by MMTC, the CBI registered a case against Sukesh Gupta in 2013 under Sections 120B r/w 409, 420, 465, 471, 477A of IPC and Section 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, for allegedly causing wrongful loss to MMTC Ltd, a public sector enterprise, to the tune of Rs 194 crore.
Based on the case registered by the CBI, the ED registered the subject ECIR in relation to the scheduled offences registered by the predicate agency.
The details of the case are that, from the financial years 2005-06 to 2010-11, MBS purchased gold amounting to over Rs 20,000 crore from MMTC without any dispute. During July, 2011, a foreign exchange fluctuation occurred and the rupee value suddenly crashed by 27 per cent.
Due to this, a liability arose. On 05 October 2012, the second MoU was signed between MBS and MMTC, whereby MMTC, after due diligence, fixed the total liability of MBS as Rs 181.39 crore as on 31 March 2012 and it stopped itself from altering the liability further. Thereafter, MMTC engaged M/s KPMG to conduct a forensic audit to ascertain liability of MBS. After the forensic audit report, the MMTC lodged a complaint with the CBI.
