Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday granted bail to Simpy Bharadwaj, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2023 for her alleged involvement in India’s largest Bitcoin-based Ponzi scheme, valued at Rs 6,606 crore, linked to Delhi-based Variable Tech Pvt Ltd.
The court held that Bharadwaj is eligible for the exception under the provision to Section 45(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which offers special consideration for women accused.
Justice Manish Pitale, in a 12-page order, stated, “There is no reason why the applicant should be denied the benefit of the exception carved out in the proviso for special treatment.” The court also noted that Simpy Bharadwaj is a mother to a six-year-old child, who requires her care.
Simpy Bharadwaj had already been in custody for ten months, and the court found that extending her incarceration would serve no purpose, especially as the trial is unlikely to begin soon.
The High Court released Simpy Bharadwaj on bail with a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and one or two sureties of the same amount.
As per the ED’s arguments , Simpy’s bail was rejected by the special PMLA court stating that her release would hinder the ongoing investigation. The ED alleged that Amit Bharadwaj, the promoter and founder of GainBitcoin.com, along with others, hatched a conspiracy involving Bitcoin Cloud Mining Contracts that defrauded investors by promising high returns that were never delivered. These schemes, run between October 2016 and August 2017, allegedly swindled investors of Rs 6,606 crore.
The ED had registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in April 2018 against Bharadwaj and others. Though Simpy Bharadwaj was not initially named in the report, she was arrested on December 17, 2023, following allegations of obstructing a search operation at her residence.
According to the ED, Simpy Bharadwaj had created a disturbance during the search, allowing her husband and father-in-law to escape. Additionally, the ED claimed Simpy Bharadwaj was involved in encouraging investors to invest in Bitcoin and had possession of crucial passwords linked to the proceeds of the crime.
However opposing the ED’s contention, Simpy’s defence counsel, Advocate Akhilesh Dubey, argued that her arrest was based solely on the incident at her residence and not on any substantial evidence linking her to the Ponzi scheme. He pointed out that Simpy Bharadwaj was never called for questioning regarding the three FIRs filed against her, and that her arrest was rushed following the incident at her home.
Advocate Dubey further argued that Simpy Bharadwaj had not been named in the two predicate offences that led to the ECIR, and her arrest violated Section 19 of the PMLA due to the lack of an objective basis for her detention.
The court after going through the arguments held that Simpy’s ongoing custody would be unnecessary given the indefinite delay in the trial. “She has suffered incarceration for about ten months and continuing her judicial custody would serve no purpose when the commencement of the trial in the present case, itself, will not be undertaken in the foreseeable future, thereby indicating that the completion of the trial will not take place within a reasonable period of time,” the order copy reads.
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