Bail plea of accused in 125cr PMLA case rejected

Mumbai: A special PMLA court last week rejected the bail plea of Nagani Shafi, accused in a Rs 125 crore money laundering case involving Malegaon-based businessman Siraj Memon. The court said no grounds were made out for bail. The court refuted the defence arguments that the money laundering case cannot continue as the scheduled or predicate offences under the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) have not yet been added in the list of scheduled offences to initiate proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The predicate or scheduled offence is one based on which the Enforcement Directorate (ED) registers its money laundering case. “…by applying section…of General Clauses Act, this court has to read the corresponding provisions of the BNS in the schedule of PMLA as a scheduled offence. Therefore, it cannot be said that there is no scheduled offence,” the judge said. Shafi has been in jail since his arrest on Nov 21. Last month, the ED had filed a chargesheet against Shafi and other accused. The ED’s probe into the case had found that the accused Memon, ran a countrywide network of hawala-channels for illicit fund layering. tnn