New Delhi, Jun 14 (PTI) The Delhi High Court has granted bail to six persons arrested in the CBI case concerning an alleged Ponzi scheme being run by Pearls Golden Forest (PGH) Limited, Pearl Agrotech Corporation Limited (PACL), and others in the garb of sale and development of agricultural land.
The applicants, who were arrested in December 2021, were accused of diverting funds raised by PGF/PACL from their investors.
Justice Prateek Jalan allowed the bail applications by Subhash Agarwal and Rajesh Agarwal –Chairman and Managing Director of M/s. ARSS Infrastructure Projects Limited, respectively; Mohan Lal Sehjpal, Director of M/s. Pearls Infrastructure Projects Limited and Mannoj Kumar Jain, Director of M/s. Jain Infra-projects Limited, subject to a personal bond in the sum of Rs 30 lakh each with two sureties each in the like amount.
Bail was also granted to accused Praveen Kumar Agarwal and Akash Agarwal in the case on the same conditions.
The judge said that the trial would take a considerable length of time and further incarceration of the applicants after the investigation against them has been completed and the supplementary charge sheet filed, was not necessary.
“The CBI has cited a total of 447 witnesses and filed a list of 769 documents with the two charge sheets. The original charge sheet, along with its annexures, alone runs into over 34,000 pages… I am of the view that applying the relevant principles to the facts of the present cases, further incarceration of the applicants, pending the conclusion of the trial, is unnecessary and they are liable to be released on bail, albeit with stringent conditions to ensure their presence at the trial and to minimise the risk of prejudice to the prosecution,” said the court in its order dated June 13.
The court imposed several conditions on the applicants, including not leaving the country without the permission of the trial court, surrendering their passports, and periodically visiting the Officer-in-Charge of the police station having jurisdiction over their place of residence.
The court recorded that as per the prosecution’s allegations in the charge sheet, PACL (Pearl Agrotech Corporation Limited) had 5.46 crore, active investors, in January 2014 from whom it raised a principal amount of approximately Rs 45,000 crores and PGF (Pearls Golden Forest Limited), the investments was around Rs 330 crores.
The CBI opposed the bail applicants on the ground that the applicants faced the grave nature of the charges which related to a Ponzi scheme in which 5.4 crore small investors were cheated of their hard-earned wealth. It was claimed that the principal perpetrators routed the funds raised from the public through the applicants and their cooperation was, therefore, essential to the successful implementation of the fraudulent collective investment scheme (CIS). PTI ADS RKS RKS
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