Non Bailable Warrants Issued Against Directors Of Gujarat Pharma Firm In Rs 8,100 Crore Money Laundering Case

Open-ended non-bailable warrants (NBWs) were issued against four directors of a Gujarat pharma firm in an Rs 8,100 crore money laundering probe, reports TNIE.

NBWs were issued against Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara, Chetankumar Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Sandesara and Hiteshkumar Narendrabhai Patel after the Enforcement Directorates’s plea seeking issuance of NBW against the Sterling Biotech Ltd (SBL) directors was accepted by Additional Sessions Judge, Satish Kumar Arora.

A case of bank fraud has been registered by the ED against the firm SBL under sections of the prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The accused were also on the radar for allegedly bribing senior income tax department officials as part of a criminal complaint filed earlier.

Nitish Rana, the ED’s special public prosecutor told the court that Interpol guidelines for opening RCN against the accused require open-ended NBWs from the court.“An open-ended NBW does not carry a time limit for execution, unlike non-bailable warrants. The ED had earlier told the court that the accused persons have left the country under suspicious circumstances and evaded the process of law to face criminal prosecution and that they were shifting countries to escape the clutches of the law”, he said.

The earlier NBW issued by the court against the four accused could not be executed because of the “unavailability of the aforesaid concerned persons”.