mumbai in a win for founder chairman of jet airways naresh goyal and his wife anita goyal bombay high court on thursday quashed a money laundering case filed by the enforcement directorate ed against them and all pending proceedings in itin january the hc bench of justices revati mohite dere and prithviraj chavan had restrained the ed from taking any coercive steps against the goyal couple while hearing their plea to quash the enforcement case information report ecir dated february 20 2020 the probe and proceedings as being illegal and contrary to law on thursday after hearing the rejoinder to eds opposition justice dere and chavan held in his favour and quashed the proceedings under the prevention of money laundering act pmla against them the reasoned order will followgoyals case was that the ecir no longer survives as it has no basis since there is no prior offence against them as required after the mra marg police station in mumbai closed an alleged cheating case filed on february 18 2020 by a travel agent against themfor naresh goyal senior counsel ravi kadam and karan kadam and for the wife senior counsel aabad ponda relied on and cited supreme court judgments including vijay chaudhary versus union of india of 2022 and ed vs obulapuram mining company of 2017 to submit that proceedings under pmla are not sustainable once the predicateunderlying offencehas been quashed or dispose of in favour of the accusedthe goyals had petitioned the hc late last year to quash the ecir and all proceedings the matter was heard for the first time on january 17 when the ed counsel sought time and this month through its counsel hiten venegaonkar argued that the ecir was a private document and cannot be quashed and that the registration of an fir in an underlying offence is not a sine qua non for initiating proceedings under pmla and ed can approach the local police to seek registration of a scheduled offence at a later stage if it comes across any evidence to that effect in course of its enquiry in a given case the ed reply said in its probe into the 2020 ecir it was revealed that the state bank of india had filed a fraud monitoring return alleging a fraud worth rs 1591 crore by jet airways by allegedly availing credit facilities by overstating assets and that sbi has made a formal complaint with central bureau of investigation cbi to register an firbut without an existing predicate underlying offence the ecir based on that underlying fir will have to be quashed submitted kadam and ponda citing the pmla mandate and findings given by two delhi high court judgments in harish fabiani led group matter quashed a 2021 ecir registered by the ed against indiabulls housing finance ltd and others under fir lodged at the wada police in palghar maharashtra where the hc had last september after closure of the fir and also emta coal caseadvocate ameet naik whose law firm was