The Punjab and Haryana high court has granted regular bail to Roop Bansal, the Managing Director of M3M, in a money laundering case, deeming his arrest as “illegal” and a significant embarrassment to the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The court relied on the Supreme Court’s October 3 decision, which granted bail to two other M3M group directors, Pankaj Bansal and Basant Bansal. The high court found that since Roop Bansal’s case was similar to Pankaj Bansal’s, especially regarding the failure to provide written grounds for the arrest, Roop Bansal’s arrest was also illegal and could not be upheld.
The high court emphasized that once the arrest is deemed illegal, all subsequent actions become irrelevant and must be invalidated. Regarding the remand orders, the court noted that they did not meet the standards set by the Supreme Court and Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). While the court concerned claimed that all mandatory provisions were followed, it failed to mention whether it had reviewed the grounds of arrest to ensure that the ED had valid reasons to believe that the petitioner had committed an offense under the PMLA and that there was proper compliance with Section 19 of the PMLA. Consequently, the court granted relief to Roop Bansal.
