Case Law Details
Guangwen Kuang @ Andrew Vs Directorate of Enforcement (Delhi High Court)
Delhi High Court upheld the remand order passed by Sessions Court, in the money laundering case registered against Vivo, concluding that Section 19 of PMLA was duly complied with and thereafter the accused persons were remanded to the custody of Directorate of Enforcement.
Facts- The instant petition u/s. 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 has been filed on behalf of petitioner seeking setting aside of impugned remand order dated 10.10.2023, passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge-05, Patiala House Court, New Delhi for offence punishable u/s. 3 & 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, and for directing the release of petitioner.
The allegations in the FIR are that certain Chinese shareholders of GPICPL had used forged identification documents and falsified addresses, while projecting itself to be a subsidiary company of Vivo, China. During enquiry conducted by MCA, it was found that the said company had been incorporated to conduct fraudulent businesses. It is also alleged that the certifying professionals who had certified and filed e-forms knew that the same contained false information and false documents about the directors namely Zhengshen Ou and Zhang Jie. Since the offences under sections 120B/417/420/471 of IPC are scheduled offences under Part A of PMLA, a prima facie case for commission of offence of money laundering u/s. 3 of PMLA, punishable u/s. 4 of PMLA, was alleged to have been made out against the accused persons and an ECIR was recorded and the case was taken up for investigation under the provisions of PMLA.
Conclusion- Held that the custody of the accused persons was sought not only due to their non-cooperation and evasive replies, but also due to the deliberate attempts to evade/mislead investigation and to find out the deep rooted conspiracy for the commission of offence under PMLA. Only after considering the facts, the remand order impugned before this Court was passed.
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