A Delhi High Court has acquitted a man facing Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) violation charge for illegally possessing foreign currencies, nearly two decades after he was booked.
Allowing Prabhat Kumar Srivastava's petition, which challenged the FERA Appellate Tribunal's decision dismissing his plea for quashing of the proceedings against him, Justice Anil Kumar on Friday directed Enforcement Directorate (ED) to refund all the currencies, recovered from his house during a raid in 1993.
The court also waive off a penalty of Rs five lakh imposed on Srivastava by the ED.
Slamming the ED for giving erroneous findings, the Court said, "The findings have been arrived without any basis which has been successfully rebutted by the petitioner and in the circumstances it has to be held that adjudication order is not sustainable.
"...it would not include act of the petitioner in the present facts and circumstances and therefore is entitled to be acquitted of the charge in so far as it relates to the acquisition of foreign currencies recovered from him."
The Court accepted Srivastava's plea that the foreign currencies, recovered from his house, belonged to N S Anand hailing from Doha in UAE. Anand had asked him to keep the money as he wanted to acquire a property for charitable hospital in the city.Join LAWyersClubIndia's network for daily News Updates, Judgment Summaries, Articles, Forum Threads, Online Law Courses, and MUCH MORE!!"
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