ED moves Delhi High Court against order to release Vivo India executives

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday moved the Delhi High Court against the release order of three Vivo-India executives in a money laundering case.

A vacation bench of Justice Tushar Rao Gedela issued notice on the agency’s plea challenging the December 30 trial court order and said since the officers have already been released, no ex-parte interim order can be passed at this stage. can be done.

“If the situation was such that he was not released, I would have been willing (to pass the interim order),” the judge told the ED counsel.

“Since the respondents/persons have already been released in pursuance of the impugned order, no ex-parte ad-interim order can be passed. However, keeping in view the urgency in the present case, notice is issued to the respondents should go.” The court listed the case for hearing on January 3.

On December 30, the trial court had directed the release of three Vivo-India executives – Chinese national and Vivo-India interim CEO Hong Xuquan alias Terry, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Harinder Dahiya and consultant Hemant Munjal, Noting that the accused was not produced before the court within 24 hours of his arrest and hence his detention was ‘illegal’.

The three accused had moved the local court for bail and claimed that they were arrested on December 21 and not December 22 as recorded by the ED, and since they were produced before the court within 24 hours of their arrest. Since he was not produced before, his arrest was ‘illegal’. And is not sustainable in law’.

However, the ED counsel had countered the claim, saying that ‘after the trio were formally arrested, they were given grounds of arrest and were produced before the concerned court within 24 hours of the arrest.’ The agency said the premises of the three accused were searched on December 21 and they were later taken to the ED office for questioning and forensic analysis of their phones. The ED told the court that he was formally arrested the next day on December 22.

The ED had raided Vivo-India offices and the premises of its affiliates in July last year and claimed to have busted a large money laundering racket involving Chinese nationals and several Indian companies.

It had then alleged that Rs 62,476 crore was ‘illegally’ transferred to China by Vivo-India to avoid payment of taxes in India.