Sudhir Parmar, suspended judge Panchukula special court judge was arrested on Thursday by the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday in connection with a money laundering investigation against him linked to charges of alleged bribery.
The former judge was arrested in Gurugram, near Delhi, under the terms of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). He is likely to be produced before a court on Friday and the ED will seek his custodial remand.
The ED initiated a PMLA investigation based on an FIR filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in Panchkula, Haryana.
According to the FIR, reliable information was received that Sudhir Parmar (who was posted as a special judge for CBI and ED cases in Panchkula at the time) showed favouritism to the accused individuals, namely Roop Kumar Bansal, his brother Basant Bansal (the owners of M3M), and Lalit Goyal (the owner of IREO Group), in exchange for undue advantage in the criminal cases of ED under PMLA and other cases of CBI pending against the aforementioned accused individuals in his court.
Sudhir Parmar was accused of receiving undue advantages through his relative Ajay Parmar. According to the FIR, reliable information revealed instances of grave misconduct, abuse of official position, and demand/acceptance of undue advantage/bribe from the accused individuals in cases pending in his court.
According to the ACB FIR, the ED received reliable information that Sudhir Parmar was showing "favouritism" to the accused, namely Roop Kumar Bansal, his brother Basant Bansal, and IREO's Lalit Goyal, in the ED and CBI criminal cases pending against them in his court.
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Earlier, the agency had arrested Parmar's nephew Ajay Parmar, two promoters of real estate company M3M – Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal – and Lalit Goyal, owner and MD of another real estate group IREO in this case.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court suspended Sudhir Parmar following the filing of the ACB complaint.
(With inputs from agencies)