MUMBAI: Taking cognisance of a chargesheet against Jet Airways (India) Ltd (JIL) founder Naresh Goyal, wife Anita Goyal and four companies, a special PMLA court has held that public money worth Rs 5,716 crore obtained from a consortium of banks led by State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank are the total proceeds of crime (POC) relating to the offence committed by JIL and its promoters.
Special judge MG Deshpande said copies of documents submitted along with the chargesheet is sufficient to “hold” the involvement of the accused for the offence alleged against them. The judge said tables referred to in the chargesheet clearly indicate flow and trail of funds and further demonstrate how tainted money (POC) has been sought to be projected as untainted.
“Therefore, the materials…indicate how the POC was generated by the criminal activity related to the Scheduled Offence which is the first qualification to initiate the process against accused persons. Secondly, the trail of money clearly indicates how the generated POC was placed, layered and integrated in order to qualify the basic ingredients of section 3 of the PML Act,” the judge said.
Naresh Goyal (74) was arrested by the ED on September 1. He is currently in judicial custody. The chargesheet submitted against him is connected to a fraud involving a Rs 539-crore Canara Bank loan, which was raised as part of the arrangement under a bank consortium. JIL borrowed Rs 5,716 crore from eight banks, and in addition, took Rs 800 crore in loans from foreign institutions. A part of the loan amount was used to acquire 13 aircraft, including 10 Boeing 777s and three Airbus 330s. It said founder Goyal implemented a massive fraud in which the funds of JIL were systematically diverted in the garb of irrational and inflated sales commissions, unexplained payouts to professionals and consultants, loans to subsidiary JetLite Ltd to acquire Air Sahara, and subsequently writing off of the loans by making provisions in the balance sheets.
After taking cognisance of the chargesheet on Wednesday, the court issued summons to his wife Anita Goyal (71) and companies Ms Jet Airways (India) Pvt Ltd, Ms Jetair Pvt Ltd, M/s Jet Enterprises Pvt Ltd and Jet Airways LLC, Dubai.
