A sessions court on Thursday rejected the Enforcement Directorate’s revision application in connection with a closure report filed by the MRA Marg police in a cheating case registered by travel firm Akbar Travels against Jet Airways and its directors Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita Goyal.
A magistrate court had rejected the agency’s intervention last month which opposed the closure report and the ED had filed this revision application challenging the order. The court on Thursday also refused to grant a stay of three weeks on its order, sought so that the agency could approach the High Court.
A FIR had been filed in February this year for cheating and criminal conspiracy among other sections by the Chief Financial Officer of Akbar Travels against Jet Airways and the Goyals. In the complaint, the firm said that in 2018-19 it had done a business of over Rs. 900 crores with the airline and that around Rs. 46 crore were due to it from the airline.
The travel firm said the Goyals had guaranteed its representative payment of dues and despite being aware of their company’s financial situation, induced it to make bookings on behalf of the airline.
The ED had registered a complaint based on this FIR. However, the police had on 9 March filed a closure report concluding that the airline did not intend to cheat but incurred losses and hence could not pay its creditors.
Akbar Travels had filed a protest petition against this closure report before the magistrate court. The ED had filed an application in the matter opposing the closure report of the police.
The agency had said in its application before the magistrate court that the closure report of the police had not considered crucial facts and that the statements of Naresh Goyal confronting him with the facts of the complaint had not been recorded. The agency had also said that the statement of an employee of Akbar Travels who could provide crucial evidence in the matter had not been recorded by the police. The closure report was filed in haste, it had added.
Advocate Dharmesh S Joshi and Parag T. Joshi for TD Joshi and Associates, who appeared for Akbar Travels said that the ED is an interested party as it is investigating the case which has its roots in the FIR which the police has closed, thus the agency has a locus standi in the matter.
