Mumbai: High Court Provides Relief To Jet Airways Founder And His Wife In ECIR Case

Mumbai, 23rd February 2023: The Bombay High Court on Thursday clarified that if the original offence does not exist, the complaint (ECIR) registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) can not be sustained. The court quashed the complaint registered against Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal and his wife, Anita.

As the case filed by the Mumbai Police is quashed, the ED’s case cannot stand. Therefore, the Goyal couple had sought quashing of the case filed by the ED, claiming that the ECIR filed by the ED and the proceedings initiated based on it were illegal and inconsistent with the law. It was accepted by a bench of Justice Revathi Dere and Justice Prithviraj Chavan during a hearing on Thursday.

ECIR is not a statutory but a private document. Therefore, it cannot be cancelled, claimed the ED during the previous hearing. The ED had also tried to tell the court that the ECIR and the First Information Report (FIR) registered by the investigating agency cannot be compared. The court, however, questioned the ED’s argument. “According to ED, ECIR has no importance; it is a simple private document. Then, how can ED conduct an investigation based on ECIR?” the court asked. ED’s statement that ECIR cannot be repealed is serious.

During the hearing held on Thursday in this matter, the ED, while explaining its stand, accepted that the ECIR filed by the ED is not sustainable if the court accepts the report regarding the closure of the original case. Therefore, the court was also told that there is nothing left in Goyal’s case. Following this statement by the ED, a bench of Justices Dere and Chavan quashed the ED’s case against the Goyal couple.

ED has no power to register the crime directly. The ED registers a complaint (ECIR) based on the crime reported by the police, CBI or similar investigative agencies. In 2018, Mumbai Police registered a case against the Goyal husband and wife. Based on that, ED registered a complaint against the two. However, in March 2020, the Mumbai Police submitted a report to the lower court to close the case stating that the complaint against Goyal was false and that the dispute was civil. The lower court also accepted this report. In this background, the Goyal couple had claimed that the case filed against Goyal by ED can not stand.