New Delhi: A Delhi court on Saturday granted bail to three vivo-India executives taken into custody by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case earlier this month.

The court granted the relief observing that the accused were not produced before the court within 24 hours of the arrest, hence their “custody was illegal”. The trio had claimed that they were arrested on December 21 and not on December 22 as recorded by the ED.

This was done on the plea of the ED that told the court that it fears that the accused may “tamper with evidence and influence witnesses” and that it wants to appeal this order before the Delhi High Court soon after the HC opens after winter vacations on January 3.

The court called these apprehensions of the ED a “bald averment”.

The agency, as per official sources, while appealing against this bail order before the HC is expected to cite the recent Supreme Court judgement which upheld a Delhi HC order that rejected Supertech promoter R K Arora’s bail plea ruling that the grounds of arrest were duly given and notified to him by the ED.

The SC had further clarified the arrest procedure executed by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), in favour of the central agency.

“The core issue is of being ‘informed’ and ‘as soon as’. If it has been duly notified and brought to the notice at the time of arrest and further disclosed in detail in the remand application, it amounts to be duly informed and served,” the HC had ruled in the R K Arora matter.

In the latest case, the three accused moved the local court seeking bail as they claimed that they were arrested on December 21 and not December 22 as recorded by the ED and since they were not produced before the court within 24 hours, their arrest was “illegal and not sustainable in law”.

The ED counsel, however, contested the claim, saying after the three were “formally arrested, they were supplied with grounds of arrest and produced before the concerned court within 24 hours from arrest.” The agency said the premises of the three accused were searched on December 21 and subsequently taken to the ED office for questioning and for forensic analysis of their phones. They were formally arrested the next day on December 22, the ED told the court.

The vacation judge said in his order that it was “evident that the accused did not have the liberty to go back to their homes for sleeping and for having meals” and it was of the opinion that the three were “under restraint at least from the time when they accompanied the officials of the complainant (ED) in their vehicles in the evening of December 21.” It said that the accused “did not have freedom” to move out of the ED office or do things which a free person would ordinarily do. As such, the accused would be deemed to have been arrested on December 21″.

The court said as the accused were not produced before the court within 24 hours, hence their custody was illegal.

The court also directed the three to furnish personal bonds of Rs 2 lakh each, not tamper with prosecution evidence and influence witnesses, not leave India without its permission and surrender their passports with the court.

The ED had raided vivo-India and its linked persons in July last year and claimed to have busted a major money laundering racket involving Chinese nationals and multiple Indian companies.

It then alleged that Rs 62,476 crore was “illegally” transferred by vivo-India to China to avoid payment of taxes in India.