Corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar granted bail in illegal foreign funding case lodged by CBI

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Friday granted bail to corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar in an alleged Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case of receiving illegal foreign funding. On May 1, a sessions court had granted bail to Talwar in a related case of money laundering registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Chief metropolitan magistrate Harjyot Singh Bhalla on Friday noted that there wasn’t any "material or rationale" to differ from the view expressed by the sessions court and hold otherwise.
Talwar's counsel Tanveer Ahmed Mir had argued why was only his client being deprived of his liberty when other co-accused had either been granted bail or chargesheeted without arrest. There were others too, who had neither been arrested nor chargesheeted so far, he added. Mir further argued that present case was registered in 2017 whereas Talwar was available in India since early 2019 – in custody in another case. The counsel pointed out that the investigating officer, however, never sought to arrest him until December 9, 2019.
The prosecutor, on the contrary, argued that of the "11 allegations" against the accused, CBI had so far been able to investigate and chargesheet the accused only in "one of the allegations" and investigation was pending in the remaining ones.
For the court though, it was evident that all other accused in the case were either on bail or not arrested. “Further, the accused Jatin Wadhera against whom substanstive offence of Section 467 IPC (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.) has been invoked in the chargesheet is already on bail… Accused has a long history of coronary artery disease and of cardiac surgery as already,” it noted.
Talwar was directed to furnish a personal bond of Rs 5 lakh with one surety besides being imposed with several riders for bail.
It is alleged that Talwar being the president of registered society, namely, M/s Advantage India received foreign contribution during 2012-2013 to 2015-2016 to the tune of Rs 90.72 crore from M/s Airbus S.A.A Paris, France and M/s MBDA, England, UK - companies engaged in aeronautics and missile manufacturing. The funds were received under "corporate social responsibility" tag.
However, the funds were not utilised for the mandated purposes. The CBI registered a case on the basis of a complaint for violations under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 and other offences including criminal conspiracy. The ED, on the basis of the CBI case, registered a money laundering case against Talwar. It is alleged that Talwar hatched a criminal conspiracy to divert funds received through foreign donors for non-mandated purposes by booking expenditure in the society books by using forged documents.