The Bombay High Court has granted interim bail to Priyavrat Mandhana, 25, former vice-president of Mandhana Industries Limited, who was arrested by Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in connection with the alleged Rs 975-crore bank loan fraud case.
The HC was hearing a petition filed by Mandhana challenging his “illegal arrest” on the grounds that ED did not provide him the ‘reason to believe’ that he had committed the offence, as mandated under PMLA.
According to the ED, a consortium of banks led by Bank of Baroda was defrauded, where the company through its promoters and directors, diverted funds given as loans to the tune of Rs 975 crore. Priyavrat’s father, Purushottam Mandhana, a director in the company, too was arrested by ED.
“Prima facie, it seems that respondents already had sufficient material as being alleged proceeds of crime as enumerated in the grounds of arrest. If that being so, we find no reason to accept the argument of ED that in order to prevent the destruction or tampering of the evidence, the petitioner’s arrest was necessary,” a bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj Chavan noted.
