Mr. Tanveer Ahmed Mir, Senior Advocate with Ms. Ariana D. Ahluwalia, Advocate v. STATE OF NCT DELHI ORS

Department – the complainant in the subject FIR. Nominal Roll dated 20.01.2025 has been received from the concerned Jail Superintendent. The court has heard Mr. Tanveer Ahmed Mir, learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner; Mr. Tarang Srivastava, learned APP appearing on behalf of the State; as well as Mr. Satish Aggarwala, learned Senior Standing Counsel appearing on behalf of the complainant at length.

6. Written synopses have also been filed on behalf of the petitioner as well the State. BRIEF FACTS

7. Briefly, the present case arises from an alleged criminal conspiracy between one Jayanta Ghosh, a former employee of the Customs Department; co-accused Vijay Singh, a data entry operator with the Customs Department; and co-accused Deepesh Chamoli, who was employed as Senior Manager at the Punjab National Bank, Sansad Marg, New Delhi. The allegation is that the criminal conspiracy was hatched with the intention of cheating the Customs Department of unclaimed and unaccounted amounts lying deposited in their bank accounts towards refund of customs duty to importers.

8. The modus operandi alleged to have been employed by the accused persons was to forge various official documents, including scrolls, Signature Not Verified Signed By:ANJALI KAUSHIK Signing Date:01.05.2025 15:13:54 BAIL APPLN. 4475/2024 Page 2 of 15 forwarding letters and cheques, using the official stamps and signatures of customs officials. It is alleged that these forged documents would in-turn be used to show bogus entities as beneficiaries who were eligible for customs duty refund, in order to misappropriate government funds. PETITIONER’S SUBMISSIONS

9. In this backdrop, Mr. Mir has made the following submissions in support of the petitioner’s bail plea : 9.1. It has been argued that even as per the prosecution case, the present petitioner – Amit Agarwal – was neither the key conspirator nor did he play a central role in the forgery or cheating in furtherance of the conspiracy. It has been submitted that, at the most, the petitioner’s role is limited to being a conduit who merely facilitated the routing and re-routing of funds on the instructions of the main conspirator and co- accused Jayanta Ghosh, after the acts of forgery and/or cheating had already been committed by the other co-accused persons.

9.2. In this behalf, learned senior counsel has explained that the allegation is that to facilitate the conspiracy, the main conspirator – Jayanta Ghosh – required certain fictitious bank accounts for receiving monies from the Customs Department and for further diverting them; and that it is for this purpose that supposed hawala operators were employed, who allegedly provided Jayanta Ghosh with 03 bank accounts into which the cheated amount of about Rs.10 crores was received and Signature Not Verified Signed By:ANJALI KAUSHIK Signing Date:01.05.2025 15:13:54 BAIL APPLN. 4475/2024 Page 3 of 15 subsequently transferred to other accounts. It has been submitted that as per the allegations, the petitioner was one such operator.

9.3. It has been argued that the petitioner did not have any knowledge of the nature of the funds received in the accounts; and that Jayanta Ghosh had persuaded the petitioner to allow use of his accounts on the pretext that these would be used only for ‘tax saving purposes’; and the petitioner was unaware that the amounts received were a result of a large-scale conspiracy. Learned senior counsel has further submitted, that even as per the prosecution case, a significant portion of the money received by the petitioner was transferred back to Jayanta Ghosh through various other entities held by the latter and his family members.

9.4. It has been submitted that the extended period of the petitioner’s incarceration as an undertrial is violative of his right to speedy trial enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Mr. Mir has pointed-out that the petitioner has already suffered judicial custody for about 13 months as an undertrial for offences which, as could be alleged against the petitioner, are punishable by only upto 07 years.

9.5. In this behalf, learned senior counsel has also drawn attention to the fact that chargesheet in the matter already stands filed on

12.01.2024, in which the prosecution has cited 49 witnesses; and that the chargesheet refers to some 10,000 pages of Signature Not Verified Signed By:ANJALI KAUSHIK Signing Date:01.05.2025 15:13:54 BAIL APPLN. 4475/2024 Page 4 of 15 documentary evidence. It has also been pointed-out that as per the prosecution, further investigation into the matter is still going-on and other entities within the Customs Department are also investigating similar incidents. It is submitted that clearly therefore, trial in the matter would not be concluded in the near future.

9.6. In support of the his submissions Mr. Mir has relied upon the decisions of the Supreme Court in Sunil Dammani vs. Enforcement Directorate, 1 V. Senthil Balaji vs. Deputy Director, Directorate of Enforcement, 2 Prem Prakash vs. Enforcement Directorate, 3 Manish Sisodia vs. Enforcement 4 Ramkripal Meena Directorate, vs. Enforcement Directorate, 5 Javed Gulam Nabi Shaikh vs. State of Maharashtra & Anr., 6 Benoy Babu vs. Enforcement Directorate,7 Sanjay Agarwal vs. Directorate of Enforcement,8 and Union of India vs. K.A. Najeeb.9

9.7. In addition, learned senior counsel has also relied upon decisions of this court in Hari Om Rai vs. Enforcement 5