Bombay HC permits wife of Naresh Goyal to travel abroad for a month

MUMBAI: Bombay high court on Tuesday permitted Anita Goyal, wife of founder chairman of Jet Airways Naresh Goyal, to travel abroad to Dubai for a month from April 20 to meet with children and their family. The Goyals had challenged the look out circular (LOC) issued against them. The HC suspended three LOCs pending against the wife.
The HC bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Sharmila Deshmukh said it would hear Naresh Goyal’s plea post summer vacation, in the second week of June, after the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) objected to his travel plans.
The SFIO counsel H S Venegaonkar said the case against the Goyals involves an alleged scam worth Rs 7000 crore including transactions worth almost Rs 900 crore in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He said the couple’s entire family is abroad and they cannot be permitted to travel abroad together. Venegaonkar also said Goyal started attending only after a bailable warrant was issued against him.
The LOCs included one each on a plea made by the SFIO, ED and the State Bank of India against the Goyal couple.
The ED lawyer Shreeram Shirsat said an appeal process was pending in the money laundering case and his passport was with the agency, as was his wife’s which now has to be released for her trip.
The probe against the Goyals is on since 2019 and the HC observed that there has to be a closure at some point. “The investigation cannot be allowed to go on for ever,’’ said the bench. Venegaonkar said SFIO would close its probe by September.
Naresh Goyal’s senior counsel Ravi Kadam said since 2019 the couple had been cooperating with agencies and hasn’t travelled abroad and the airline company has been in insolvency for almost four years.