Pradeep Sharma gets bail

Ahmedabad: Gujarat high court on Thursday granted bail to suspended IAS officer Pradeep Sharma in a money laundering case registered against him by the enforcement department.
While ordering to release Sharma on conditional bail, Justice A J Desai rejected the Centre’s request to stay the order for a brief period of time so that the agency could approached the Supreme Court. Sharma was asked to furnish bail bond of Rs 2 lakh for his release, said Sharma’s advocate H B Champavat.

Sharma got bail after the apex court read down section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act which restrained court from granting bail considering proof of burden to convince the court of his innocence lies on the accused’s shoulder.

On January 4, a special PMLA court denied bail to Sharma and he approached the HC.

Enforcement directorate had slapped charges of money laundering against Sharma in 2012 on basis of an FIR filed by Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) accusing him of corruption. He was arrested in July 2016 on charges of money laundering. As the district collector of Kutch in 2004, Sharma was accused of allotting land to Welspun Group at 25% of market rate and thereby causing loss of Rs 1.2 crore to the government exchequer.

ED probe revealed that Sharma’s wife invested just Rs 1 lakh to become 30% partner in a company, Value Packaging, and then in return she continued to receive crores of rupees in her and her children’s accounts in USA through havala entries via Dubai.

Meanwhile, Sharma has also filed an application before the high court for a discharge from this case. On January 23, the HC stayed the special PMLA court from proceeding further against him. Justice S G Shah had observed that looking at the material on record, there is prima facie case in favour of Sharma. This was in contrast to the special court’s observation made earlier that there was a prima facie case against Sharma.