PMLA court grants anticipatory bail to nine accused

Tribune news service

Chandigarh, November 18

A PMLA court here has granted anticipatory bail to nine accused in a money laundering case related to the seven-year-old alleged rail scam.

Mahesh Kumar, Narayan Rao Manjunath, Sandeep Goyal, Vijay Singla, Rahul Yadav, Sameer Sandhir, Sushil Daga, CV Venugopal and MV Murali Krishna were granted anticipatory bail by the Special Judge.

The accused had applied for anticipatory bail after the PMLA court had issued summons to them.

While the Enforcement Directorate opposed the bail, Siddharth Pandit, counsel of the petitioners, argued that the accused had no role to play in the alleged offence of money laundering.

They cooperated with the ED during the course of investigation and were never arrested, said Pandit. Mere presentation of complaint and thereafter summoning of the petitioners by the court was no ground to deny them the concession of anticipatory bail, he argued.

After hearing the arguments, the court granted the bail to all the accused subject to the furnishing of bail bond of Rs5 lakh each.

Earlier, the CBI had registered an FIR in the case on May 3, 2013 against Mahesh Kumar, then Member (Staff), Railway Board, New Delhi, and seven other private persons.