HC asks ED why its complaint can't be quashed if original offence is closed

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday asked the Enforcement Directorate ED why an Enforcement Case Information Report ECIR cannot be quashed if the original offence on which it is based has been closedA division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan was hearing a petition filed by Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita Goyal seeking the quashing of an alleged money laundering case registered against them by the EDGenerally an ECIR is registered on the basis of a criminal case registered by the police CBI or any other agencyThe Goyals lawyers senior advocates Ravi Kadam and Aabad Ponda submitted that the ECIR was registered on the basis of a complaint filed with the Mumbai police in 2018But in March 2020 the police filed a closure report stating that they found no substance in the complaint and the dispute seemed to be civil in natureThe report was accepted by a magistrates courtAlso readDont want Shiv Sena Bhavan or any other property linked to Uddhav camp Shinde groupAs the scheduled offence police case did not stand the ED case could not survive the lawyers saidED lawyers Hiten Venegaonkar and Shreeram Shirsat argued that the ECIR can not be quashed as it was an internal private piece of paperECIR can never be quashed It is not a statutory documentary and a simple paper If we want to initiate a civil case then ECIR helps You cannot equate ECIR with FIR What happens to the other actions that I have taken basis the ECIR like recording statement of witnesses what happens to that Venegaonkar arguedThe bench however asked if anything would survive when the scheduled offence had been closedECIR is basis on which you start investigation You are making a big statement that ECIR cannot be quashed If it is just a piece of paper how do you initiate investigation on that What happens when the scheduled offence goes The very basis for ECIR goes then what survives the court askedPonda pointed out a Supreme Court order where Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had submitted that once a closure report on the original offence is accepted by a court the ECIR did not surviveThe court then directed ED lawyers to take instructions and posted further hearing on WednesdayThe police had registered a First Information Report against the Goyals for alleged cheating and forgery on a complaint filed by Akbar TravelsThe travel agency had alleged that it suffered a loss of over Rs 46 crore after the airline cancelled flight operations from October 2018This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever