A summons to Hero Motocorp chairman Pawan Kant Munjal in a foreign currency case filed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) was revoked by the Delhi High Court on Wednesday.
The trial court’s July 1, 2023 order, which issued Munjal a summons for alleged Customs Act offenses, was quashed and set aside by the high court in response to his plea.
“The petition is granted. “The summoning order has been quashed,” declared Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri.
The DRI’s case regarding foreign currency against Munjal was halted by the high court in November of last year.
In its interim ruling, the high court observed that the petitioner had successfully argued for interim protection and that Munjal had been cleared by the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) based on the same facts, which had not been revealed to the trial court.
The operation of the July 1, 2023, order issued by this additional chief metropolitan magistrate and all related proceedings that were still pending before the ACMM regarding the petitioner had been halted.
The DRI had filed a prosecution complaint in 2022 for “carrying, attempting to export and illicit export of prohibited items, that is, foreign currency” against Munjal, a third-party service provider company called SEMPL and individuals identified as Amit Bali, Hemant Dahiya, K R Raman and some others.
Besides the July last year order, the petitioner had also sought quashing of the complaint pending before the ACMM.
Munjal’s attorney had argued that the trial court’s decision was made automatically and without explanation.
Regarding the March 2022 order’s non-disclosure, the DRI’s legal representative argued that there was no reason for the organization to be aware of or withhold information about the order given that it was not a party to the CESTAT proceedings.
A case had also been filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in accordance with several provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The primary source of the case is the chargesheet that the DRI, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs’ investigative arm, filed in front of a Delhi court under section 135 of the Customs Act, which deals with evasion of duty or prohibitions.
“Illegally exported foreign currency equivalent to about ₹ 54 crore to various countries during the period from 2014-2015 to 2018-2019, which was ultimately used for personal expenses of P K Munjal,” according to the ED’s allegations against Salt Experience and Management Private Limited (SEMPL).
It has been alleged that SEMPL obtained foreign exchange exceeding the annual permissible limit of USD 2.5 lakh in several financial years, totaling approximately ₹ 14 crore, in the names of its officials and employees, including Hemant Dahiya, Mudit Aggarwal, Amit Makker, Gautam Kumar, Vikram Bajaj, and Ketan Kakkar.
SEMPL has also drawn foreign exchange and travel forex cards in huge amounts in the name of other employees who did not even travel abroad, the agency has claimed.
