Bombay HC Quashes Money Laundering Case Against Jet Airways Founder Naresh Goyal

The ECIR had been opened as a result of a complaint made to the Mumbai police in 2018. The police submitted a closure report in March 2020, concluding that there was no merit to the criminal complaint

The Bombay High Court on Thursday quashed the ED's money laundering case against Naresh Goyal, the founder of Jet Airways, and his wife, according to Bar and Bench. The court also stopped all ongoing trials and legal procedures connected to Goyal’s case.

A division bench of Justice Revati Mohite-Dere and Justice Prithviraj K Chavan passed an order in a plea filed by the Goyals, seeking to quash the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) lodged by the central agency. 

On the basis of a complaint made by the travel company Akbar Tours against Jet Airways's Naresh Goyal, and Anita Goyal, the MRA Marg police station in Mumbai filed an FIR. In February 2020 the ED took cognizance of the case. 

Naresh and Anita Goyal were charged in the FIR with forgery, criminal conspiracy, and cheating under the Indian Criminal Code (IPC).

The airline business cancelled flying operations beginning in October 2018. The travel agency claimed to have sustained a loss of around Rs 46 crores.

According to the report, Goyals' petition said that the ECIR had been opened as a result of a complaint made to the Mumbai police in 2018. The police submitted a closure report in March 2020, concluding that there was no merit to the criminal complaint and that the conflict appeared to be of a civil nature. This was approved by a Metropolitan Magistrate Court, and the Supreme Court maintained it in spite of the ED's objections.

Goyals' then filed a petition with the Bombay High Court to have the ECIR quashed since the predicate offence was not proven. The High Court prohibited coercive action against the Goyals in January this year. On February 22, the ED contested the plea, claiming that the ECIR could not be invalidated since it was an internal, private "piece of paper" and not a statutory record, the report said. 

“ECIR can never be quashed. It is not a statutory documentary and a simple paper. If we want to initiate a civil case, then ECIR helps. You cannot equate ECIR with FIR. What happens to the other actions that I have taken basis the ECIR, like recording statement of witnesses, what happens to that?” the ED counsel argued.

However, on Wednesday, the court asked what would remain if the scheduled offence that served as the basis for registering an ECIR had been resolved. The court had asked ED whether it could quash an ECIR or not, especially in light of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta's statement in another case before the Supreme Court that an ECIR by ED would not survive after acceptance of the closure report in the predicate offence, the report said. 

After hearing from the parties on Thursday, the court proceeded to nullify the ECIR.