Lawyer’s bail rejected by SC, money laundering case

The Supreme Court, on the 10th of November rejected the bail plea of lawyer Rohit Tandon. Tandon was arrested in connection with an alleged money laundering case post demonetization.

Tandon was arrested after a raid on his law firm in connection with a black money probe that led to the seziure of Rs, 13.6 crore. He was allegedly involved in illegal conversion of nearly Rs 60 crore demonetised currency.

The plea was rejected by a bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud .

The concept of bail, which is to rule and exception from jail has been overturned in this case.

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatagi who was seeking bail for the accused that no case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) was made against Tandon. He said Tandon was allegedly found with unaccounted cash but that is not an offence under PMLA as the Act deals with proceeds of crime.

The bail was strongly opposed by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta, who a report that Tandon was converting the illegal cash and causing harm to the government of India which had cracked down on black money.

Tandon has sought regular bail on the ground that he needs to look after his ailing mother.
The apex court had on September 4 refused to extend the three-week interim bail granted by the Delhi High Court to the lawyer.

He was granted interim bail on August 10 by the High Court from where he had withdrawn his plea for regular bail.

Tandon had earlier moved a fresh bail application before the High Court which on May 5 had rejected his bail plea.

A trial court had earlier denied bail to Tandon on the ground that he was alleged to have been involved in a “white collar crime” with other accused in a “well-planned” manner.

The Enforcement Directorate had arrested him after a raid on his law firm in connection with a black money probe that had led to the alleged seizure of Rs 13.6 crore.

Besides him, some other accused were also arrested in connection with a separate Prevention of Money Laundering Act case.