Mumbai: A special PMLA court on Thursday remanded two people held in connection with the investigation into the Fairplay money laundering case in Enforcement Directorate’s custody till Saturday (February 15).
Chirag Shah and Chintan Shah, who allegedly looked after technological and software-related aspects of Fairplay, were arrested by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The agency produced them before special PMLA judge AC Daga and sought their custody.
Defence lawyers opposed the plea, pointing out that the first information report registered by the cyber police, the ‘predicate’ offence on which the ED case was based, was quashed by the Bombay High Court on Wednesday.
But as the order was yet to be uploaded on the HC website, the PMLA court remanded the two accused in ED custody. A further order will be passed on Saturday, the court said. As per the Supreme Court’s guidelines, a PMLA case cannot stand in the absence of a predicate offence.
As per the ED, Fairplay was engaged in illegal online betting in various sports, and live-streamed Indian Premier League matches without permission. It also facilitated betting on the Lok Sabha Election 2024, the agency claimed. Fairplay has no legal presence in India, with no registered entity, GST registration or PAN to conduct such business activities, it said.
The ED case stemmed from an FIR of the Mumbai Police’s cyber cell, registered on the complaint of Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd for allegedly causing revenue loss of more than Rs100 crore through unauthorised broadcast of IPL.
