Vivo PMLA case: Delhi court extends custody of 4 accused by three days

New Delhi [India], October 13 : Patiala House Court of Delhi on Friday extended custody of four accused persons by three days in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case related to the Chinese mobile company Vivo.
The accused were produced before the court after the expiry of three days of ED custody. The central agency sought further custody of 10 days of all the accused persons.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Devender Kumar Jangala extended the custody for a further three days after hearing submissions of ED's counsels and counter submissions of defence counsels.
ASJ Jangala said, "I am of the considered opinion that the ED is able to make out the case for grant of further custody remand."
"However, it is clarified that the ED is duty bound to explain that the custody period is properly utilised for the purposes of investigation, "ASJ Jangala said in the order.
"The accused persons namely Hari Om Rai, Nitin Garg, Rajan Malik and Guangwen Kuang alias Andrew are accordingly further remanded to ED custody till October 1616.10.2023 (three days)," the judge directed.
The court also directed that his interrogation shall be conducted at some place having CCTV coverage in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Paramvir Singh Saini Vs. Baljit Singh & Ors., SLP Crl. No. 3543/2020 decided on December 2, 2020, and also in accordance with all the other applicable rules, directions and guidelines on the subject and the said CCTV footage shall be preserved.
The court further directed that the Accused persons shall be medically examined once in every 48 hours during the above period and in terms of provisions contained in Section 4ID Cr.P.C., the accused persons shall also be permitted to meet their Advocates for half an hour daily between 6 pm to 7 pm during the said period of their ED custody in a manner that the ED Officials are not able to hear their conversations.
The court directed the ED to provide the necessary medicines to the accused persons, as per their medical prescriptions.
The court also noted that On the last date of hearing i.e. 10.10.2023 it was submitted by Ld. Special PP for ED that the accused Hari Om Rai has not taken food despite being served in the custody of ED.
In this regard, it was submitted by accused Hari Om Rai that he wanted to have an audience with higher officers of ED. This request is strongly opposed by Special PP for ED on the grounds that there is a prohibition under Section 50(2) of PMLA.
The court observed, "The officers of ED are public servants, subservient to the Constitution of India, hence bound to hear the grievance of any person, including the accused also. Section 50(2) of PMLA does not de-bossing to be given by the officers of ED.
The court said that the investigating officer is directed to produce the accused Hari Om Rai before the Joint Director/Special Director of ED to give him personal hearing for redressal of his grievance relating to ED.
In the matter Manish Jain and Simon Benjamin, Special Public Prosecutor appeared for ED.
It was submitted by the ED that the accused not answering questions when they were confronted with facts.
The court asked the ED what you did in the last three days.
The ED's Counsel said that witnesses were examined. Summoned have been issued to 13 persons to join the investigation. For the investigation, we require more time.
Senior Advocates Siddharth Agarwal and advocates along with Mudit Jain and Aashul Aggarwal appeared for Chinese national Guangwen Kuang at Andrew in the matter and gave their submissions opposing the remand application moved by the ED.
It was submitted that non-cooperation is not a ground for extension of custody. It was also stated that there is flagrant violation of the procedure by the investigation agency.
Manu Sharma, Abhit Datt, Abhay Raj Verma, Gyanendra Kumar, Karl P Rustomkhan, Z Abdullah, Arjun Rekhi and Kartikay counsels appeared for the accused Hari Om Rai.
Advocate Shri Singh, counsel for the accused Nitin Garg in the matter gave their submissions against the ED remand plea.
According to the ED certain Chinese Shareholders of Grand Prospect Internation Communication Private Ltd incorporated the company on the basis of forged identification documents and falsified addresses.
During the course of enquiry, certain fraudulent activities were found by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The said company was not reported as a subsidiary of Vivo in the official records whereas the said company publicly projects itself to be a subsidiary of Vivo.
ED further alleged that Director and Share Holder Zhang Jie used a false driving licence for applying Director Identification Number(DIN) to give his Shillong Address and also used his fake driving licence in opening the bank account. With the allegations of cheating an FIR in Police station Kalkaji, South East Delhi registered under Section 417/120B/420 IPC and another FIR also registered under Section 417/420/468/471/120B IPC by the Economic Offence Wing, Delhi Police on the basis of a complaint filed by Manjit Singh, the then Deputy Registrar of Companies, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, NCT of Delhi.
ED further alleged that soon after the incorporation of Vivo, India, 19 more companies including GPICPL were incorporated across India, completely controlled by Chinese Nationals. The accused Bin Luo was the founding/first Director of Vivo India, GPICPL and all other 18 entities at the time of their incorporation and the accused Nitin Garg, had assisted in the incorporation of most of the companies of Vivo Group.
According to the Enforcement Directorate raids were on the premises of the accused on 9th October and seized cash amounting to more than Rs 10 lakhs and arrested four accused who have been identified as Guangwen Kyang aka Andrew Kuang, the Chinese National, Hari Om Rai, the MD of Lava International, Rajan Malik, and Nitin Garg, a Chartered Accountant. The probe revealed that the PMLA investigation by ED was initiated by registering a money laundering case on February 3, 2022.