Delhi Court dismisses bail plea of lawyer Rohit Tandon in money laundering case

A Delhi court on Saturday dismissed the bail plea of controversial lawyer Rohit Tandon, who was arrested in connection with a money laundering case post demonetisation.

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

Tandon’s bail plea was rejected by Additional Sessions Judge R K Tripathi. ED strongly oppossed his contention on the ground that the investigation is at a crucial stage.

He was arrested on December 29 last year and after initial interrogation, he was sent to judicial custody for 14 days on January 2.

While seeking bail for Tandon, his counsel and senior advocate Vikas Pahwa said there was no evidence against him and no proceeds of the alleged crime had been identified by ED yet.

He argued that ED has no right to arrest the accused as the source of funds involved in the alleged transactions was yet to be ascertained.

Rebutting the arguments of the accused, Special Public Prosecutor Vikas Garg, appearing for ED, said it was the source of funds and not just funds which had to be ascertained, an aspect on which the probe is going on, adding that the investigation is at a crucial stage.

During the hearing, the counsel for the accused said that the alleged offences were not violative of the government’s November 8, 2016 notification and ED was making the arrests for media attention to highlight demonetisation, a claim rejected by the agency’s counsel.