Delhi HC denies interim bail to Arvind Dham in money laundering case

New Delhi [India], May 30 (ANI): The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to grant interim bail to Arvind Dham in a money laundering case in view of allegations against him. He has been in custody since July 2024. His regular bail has been pending before the High Court since February 2025.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED)'s allegation is that there are multiple thousand crores of proceeds of crime. Justice Ravinder Dudeja refused to grant interim bail in view of the seriousness of the allegations levelled against him.
However, the court has expedited the bail hearing and listed the matter on July 15.
Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa submitted that Dham should be granted interim bail during the pendency of his petition, which has been pending since February 2025. He has been in custody for the past 11 months and has a history of medical illness.
Special counsel Zoheb Hossain opposed the submissions made on behalf of the accused. Special public prosecutor (SPP) Manish Jain, along with Snehal Shard, appeared for the ED. The bench refused to grant him the relief.
Dham was arrested in July 2024 by the ED in a money laundering case linked to alleged bank fraud.
Earlier, the CBI had registered a case against the Amtek group. There are allegations of bank fraud of around Rs. 20,000 crores.
On June 20, 2024, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted searches at 35 places in Delhi, NCR, and Maharashtra against Amtek Group in connection with a huge bank fraud case involving more than Rs 20,000 crores in several listed companies. These companies were finally taken over in an NCLT proceeding at a nominal price, leaving a consortium of banks with a nominal recovery.
Raids were conducted across Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai and Nagpur under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Amtek Group led by Arvind Dham, Gautam Malhotra and others.
The alleged fraud led to a massive loss to the exchequer of approximately Rs 10-15 thousand crores, said the ED.
ED investigation started based on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) First Information Report (FIR) in one of the group entities, ACIL Limited, and as per the Supreme Court's directions to investigate the fraud.
Further, ED said its investigation revealed that loan funds were siphoned off to invest in real estate, foreign investment, and new ventures.
As per the agency, fictitious sales, capital assets, debtors and profit were shown in group concerns to get more loans so that it doesn't get NPA. (ANI)