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TMI Blog2023 (6) TMI 471X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... authorities to permit him to travel to Seychelles on condition to return to India on 31st October 2022. 2. Brief facts behind filing of the present petition are as under:- i) Suspecting fraud and money laundering, the Chief Vigilance Commission, vide its Office Memorandum dated 27.10.2017 requested the CBI to investigate into the sanction of loan to one M/s.Win Wind Oy, Finland by the Senior Management Officials of IDBI. ii) The cat was out of the bag. The investigation by the CBI revealed that a huge sum of Rs.322.40 Crores was sanctioned as loan to the said Company by IDBI vide Letter No.IDBI/DIFC/WIN/2010- 11/101 dated 4.11.2010 without following the guidelines and once again, surprisingly, ignoring the fact that the said loan was declared as Non Performing Asset (NPA) to the extent of Rs.393 Crores, a further loan to the tune of Rs.530 Crores was disbursed to one M/s.Axcel Sunshine Limited, another entity of the same group of companies during the year 2014 and adjusted the NPA and other overdue accounts of the group of companies and thereby caused a wrongful loss of more than Rs.600 crores to IDBI. iii) The investigation further revealed involvement of various persons, C ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ecision of this court. x) Whileso, the Enforcement Directorate had preferred a complaint in consonance with the proviso of Section 45 read with Section 44 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 on 11.1.2021 for the offences under Section 3 read with Section 7 of Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) Act punishable under Section 4 of PML Act 2002, wherein the petitioner has been arrayed as A1 and the case has been taken on file in Spl.C.C.No.2 of 2021 before the IX Additional Special Judge for CBI Cases, City Civil Court, Chennai. xi) In such a background, the present petition has been filed by the petitioner seeking a direction to the respondent to permit him to travel abroad for a short period assuring that he would return to India completing some of his tasks. 3. Heard Mr.P.S.Raman, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner, Mr.AR.L.Sundaresan, Additional Solicitor General for the second respondent, Mr.K.Srinivasan, learned Special Public Prosecutor appearing for respondents 3 and 4, Mr.K.Srinivasamurthy, learned Senior Panel Counsel appearing for respondents 1, 6 and 9, Mr.R.Rajesh Vivekananthan, learned Deputy Solicitor General for the fifth respondent an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... r official position in the capacity of public servants, facilitated the latter to procure loan amounting to Rs.53 Crores from IDBI in favour of m/s.Axcel Sunshine Limited, a Company based in the British Virgin Islands and also an associate Company of the same Siva Group of Companies to use the same for repaying other loans of other associate Companies of the Group in flagrant violation of the regulatory guidelines. iii) On disbursement of the loans, the amounts were utilized by the Directors of Siva Industries and Holdings Company Limited to clear the dues of the associate companies. iv) The petitioner was the Promoter/Director of Siva Group of Companies till 2006 and he relinquished all the portfolios held by him in the said group of Companies before his appointment as Ambassador at large of Seychelles. The petitioner was instrumental alongwith other accused in hatching the conspiracy to get release the Corporate Guarantee of M/s.Siva Industries and Holdings Ltd., for the Bank's exposure to M/s.Win Wind Oy from the custody of the bank by bank's own funds in the form of a fresh loan to M/s.Axcel Sunshine Limited during 2014. v) The contents of email correspondence amo ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... eholder having major role in all the three companies and thus, the petitioner being a foreign national, LOC was issued against the petitioner. xii) Though the petitioner had attended the office of the Enforcement Directorate, his further presence is very much required to complete the investigation/trial. xiii) The petitioner has not produced any documentary evidence for his requirement at Seychelles for winding up his Ambassadorship duties and there is every possibility of his escaping from the clutches of law in the event of permission being granted to him to travel abroad. In fact, he has already been relieved from Ambassadorship by his own admission and he had acknowledged the same vide his letter dated 8.2.2022. Further, he can pursue his business/legal consultations from anywhere in the world by online means. The other reason attributed by the petitioner viz., to attend a trade fair/exhibition is concerned, the petitioner claims to be a representative of a Company named "AIWO LIMITED" and the period of exhibition is shown as 15th to 18th October 2022. The Master Data of AIWO LIMITED maintained with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs reveals that the petitioner is not even a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ourt has also agreed with the views expressed by this court in W.P.No.19748 of 2019. The idea of issuing LOC is only to ensure that big offenders do not go scot free by flying away to other countries and protract or dilute the smooth investigation of criminal cases/serious economic offences involving public money pending against them by taking shelter under the cumbersome process to bring them back into the circle of investigation. 10. Indisputably, the petitioner is facing charges of serious economic offences involving huge public money and money laundering, warranting investigation by various investigation agencies. In some of the cases pending against the petitioner, trial has commenced, it appears and many cases are under investigation. Further, the petitioner is a foreign national. Though he claims to have strong roots in Chennai/India, he has not come out with any permanent local address also to strengthen his claim. It is the case of the respondents that the further investigation is on a crucial stage requiring the presence of the petitioner in the absence of which, the investigation process may get prolonged and diluted and therefore, under the guise of personal liberty to ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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