M3M money laundering case: Court refuses to extend custody of Basant Bansal, son

Chandigarh, June 26

A Panchkula court today refused to grant further remand of Basant Bansal and his son Pankaj Bansal, promoters of M3M group, and Ajay Parmar, nephew of suspended CBI judge Sudhir Parmar, in the judge bribery scandal.

Based on Haryana’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB)’s FIR, dated April 17, alleging favours to the IREO group’s key person Lalit Goyal and promoters of the M3M by the CBI and ED judge Sudhir Parmar, the ED had registered Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) on June 13 against the judge, his nephew Ajay Parmar, Roop Bansal, one of the promoters of the M3M, and others.

The ED had arrested Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal on June 14 and produced them before the Panchkula court. The court had granted five-day custody of the accused. When they were produced again before the court on June 20, they were again remanded to six-day custody.

The ED today submitted, “…during the custody of this Directorate, the accused persons have been extensively interrogated at the office at Pravartan Bhawan, New Delhi. However, the accused persons remained non-cooperative. They either evaded the queries or gave evasive replies during the custodial interrogation. They also withheld the information that is within their exclusive knowledge.”

The ED added, “That as the learned court had allowed the meeting of the accused with the lawyer as well as family members along with home-cooked food, considerable amount of the custodial interrogation time has been consumed for its arrangement apart from the daily routine thorough medical checkup and diagnosis of the accused persons.”

The ED asked for custody for three more days, but it was denied. After the arrest of Ajay Parmar, he was produced before the Panchkula court on June 16.