Jet Airways' Naresh Goyal sent to 14-day judicial custody in over ₹500 crore bank fraud case

livemint.com:

Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal on Thursday sent to 14-day judicial custody in a ₹538 bank fraud case, news agency PTI reported. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Goyal on 1 September under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) following a long session of questioning at the central agency's office in Mumbai.

The 74-year-old businessman was produced before the court at the end of his ED remand on Thursday. Goyal was sent to judicial custody by the court as no further remand was sought by the probe agency.

Also read: Jet Airways aircraft sale: Ace Aviation urges NCLAT to hear case in two weeks Naresh Goyal, 78, has been arrested in an alleged ₹538 crore bank fraud case, siphoning off funds from India to overseas by creating various trusts and using them to buy properties. Goyal did a fraud of ₹538 crore at state-run Canara Bank, as per the probe agency.

The money laundering case stems from an FIR of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Jet Airways, Goyal, his wife Anita, and some former company executives in connection with an alleged ₹538-crore fraud case at Canara Bank. The FIR was registered on the government lender's complaint which alleged it sanctioned credit limits and loans to Jet Airways (India) Ltd to the tune of ₹848.86 crore of which ₹538.62 crore was outstanding.

Also read: Cash-strapped Go First and Jet Airways lose airline codes for being non-operational However, the business magnate, who once operated India's top private airline, claimed the aviation sector runs based on bank loans, and all the funds cannot be termed as laundering. His advocates Abbad Ponda, Amit Desai, and Amit Naik have argued that Goyal did not have any loans in his or his family's name or stood as a