Jet Airways case: Bombay HC asks ED why ECIR against Naresh Goyal, wife can’t be quashed

In February 2020, the ED took cognizance of an FIR lodged by MRA Marg police station in Mumbai, based on a complaint filed by travel agency Akbar Travels against Jet Airways, Naresh and Anita. In 2021, a closure report was filed in the case and the court accepted it despite ED’s opposition.

Senior advocates Ravi Kadam and Aabad Ponda, representing the Goyals, said there was no predicate offence as required for the ED to investigate the ECIR. They added that the police had filed a C-summary (closure) report and the protest plea filed in connection to it by the ED was rejected. The same was confirmed by the HC and the Supreme Court, they added.

The Goyals said that the ECIR “cannot be sustained” with regard to the mandate of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and will have to be quashed as is no predicate offence.

Advocates Hiten Venegaonkar and Shreeram Shirsat, representing the ED, told HC that the ECIR could not be quashed as it was “an internal and private piece of paper, which could be considered statutory document” and “same could not have been equated with FIR”.

However, the HC asked the ED lawyer, “You are making a big statement that ECIR cannot be quashed. If it is just a piece of paper, how do you initiate investigation on that? What happens when the scheduled offence goes? The very basis for ECIR goes, then what survives?”

Ponda referred to a past SC order in which Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had said that once the closure report against a scheduled offence is accepted by the court, the ECIR does not survive and could be quashed.

After going through SC order, the HC asked ED lawyers to take instructions on whether the court could quash an ECIR and asked how their submissions could be contrary to that of the solicitor general, who is a law officer of the top court.

The HC will hear ED’s response on Thursday.