In a significant development, the Rouse Avenue Court has acquitted Nitin Bhatnagar, a close associate of Ratul Puri, in a Rs 354 crore fraud case involving the Central Bank of India. The court has also pulled up the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for its investigation and prosecution in the case.
Bhatnagar was accused of helping Ratul Puri, nephew of senior Congress leader Kamal Nath, and others to launder money through a real estate company. However, the court observed that Bhatnagar, working as a relationship manager in the Bank of Singapore, had no way of knowing that the funds were part of the fraud money.
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The court also criticized the ED for relying on the statements of Rajiv Saxena, who had turned approver in the AgustaWestland scam case, and for not recording the statement of any hawala dealer despite claiming that the money was transferred through hawala channels.
Additionally, the court pulled up banks for failing to report suspicious transactions to the authorities, stating that they failed to follow due diligence procedures in tracing the crime money.
The acquittal of Nitin Bhatnagar is a significant setback for the ED, which had alleged that Moser Baer, where Ratul Puri was the executive director, had defrauded the Central Bank of India and other banks to the tune of Rs 7,980 crore.
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