A Mumbai special court dealing with money laundering cases has fired actor, producer and businessman Sachin Joshi, against whom the Enforcement Directorate had registered a case under the Money Laundering Prevention Act.
Mumbai,UPDATED: 19 Oct 2022 02:06 IST
The enforcement directorate arrested actor Sachin Joshi on February 14, 2021, following allegations that he had received approximately Rs 410 crores from real estate company Omkar Realtors and Developers. (Photo: India today)
By Vidya : A Mumbai special court dealing with money laundering cases has fired actor, producer and businessman Sachin Joshi, against whom the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had registered a case under the Money Laundering Prevention Act.
The special court ruled that Joshi was entitled to be dismissed on the basis of the case and also on the grounds that the Aurangabad predicate offense under which the ED had registered a case against the actor had been closed.
The Enforcement Directorate arrested Joshi on February 14, 2021, following allegations that he had received approximately Rs 410 crores as part of a proof of concept (POC) linked to real estate company Omkar Realtors and Developers. The 37-year-old actor has been released on medical bail on medical grounds. Later, the court also granted him bail in March this year on a personal bail of Rs 30 lakh.
Lawyers Abad Ponda and Subhash Jadhav who appeared before Joshi argued that the ED had failed to establish the POC linked to him. Joshi had accepted that he had received money from the Omkar group, but claimed it was because he had acted as a brand ambassador or had been the face of many projects undertaken by the company. He had also shown the taxes he paid for the money he made from his affiliation with the Omkar group.
Special Judge MG Deshpande said that on “careful examination of the entire indictment and various documents accompanying it, at first glance even the ED does not say that Sachin Joshi and its affiliates such as Viking Corporation, Viking Ventures etc. ever had an outside role.” have played.” or part of the process of securing a loan of Rs 410 crores from the Yes Bank and using the same as proceeds of crime.”
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Deshpande said that “even it is a recognized fact that Joshi and companies associated with him were neither the generator of POC nor its recipients with the knowledge.”
The court found that the predicate offense registered in Aurangabad, on the basis of which the ED had filed a case against the actor, has also been closed. The special court also granted bail and fired two owners of Omkar Group on August 24 after the Supreme Court ruled on July 27 that proceedings under the Money Laundering Prevention Act would end when the predicate offense ends.
Deshpande said: “Admittedly, there is no predicate offense or a case related to it today anywhere. Therefore, in the absence of a predicate offense, this special PMLA case cannot proceed.”