Bombay High Court rejects ED plea closes case against Naresh & Anita Goyal

Bombay High Court rejects ED plea closes case against Naresh & Anita Goyal 

The Bombay High Court (HC) rejected a plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for permission to intervene and oppose closure by the Mumbai Police of a cheating case against Jet Airways and its directors, Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita Goyal.

The case of cheating was registered with MRA Marg police station based on a complaint lodged by the chief financial officer (CFO) of Akbar Travels of India Pvt Ltd (ATIPL).The complainant had alleged that in 2018-19, ATIPL had done business of Rs. 900 crore with Jet Airways, of which Rs. 21.31 crore was yet to be paid by the airline.

The complainant also alleged that they made advance air ticket bookings of Rs. 23.87 crore for the airline, which too was due. The complainant, thus, claimed that Jet Airways had defaulted on payment of Rs. 46.05 crore to the company.

A single bench of Justice Revati Mohite-Dere upheld an order passed by the Magistrate Court and refused granting permission to ED to intervene in the matter.

The ED approached the HC after the Mumbai Sessions Court also rejected its appeal against the Magistrate Court order.

According to my the complainant, the Goyals' had assured about clearing the dues but to no avail. He also said that the Goyals' made ATIPL do business with them despite being aware of the financial crisis.

The police, after completing the probe, had on March 9 filed a closure report claiming that they found no evidence that the complainant was cheated. The police, in its report, claimed the case was of civil nature and sought closure of the case on that ground.

ED sought to re-investigate the case and therefore filed an application seeking permission of the Magistrate court for intervening in the case opposing the closure report. The ED claimed that the police left out various crucial aspects in its probe.

ED claimed that the police did not properly investigate facts about the meetings between the complainant's representative and Goyal's, wherein ATIPL was assured of payment, and also did not record a statement of Goyal about his accounts with foreign banks.

According to the ED, the police had filed the report with undue haste and claimed that during the ED probe, they unearthed numerous foreign bank accounts of Goyal and his wife Anita and related entities in the UAE, UK, Switzerland, Singapore, USA etc.

In the plea, the ED asked the court to not accept the closure report of the police and asked the court to direct the police to reinvestigate the complaint with regards to undisclosed accounts and assets of Goyal's and his family members.

The Magistrate Court rejected the protest petition of ATIPL and closed the case by accepting the closure report.