The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday granted bail to Amtek group's promoter and former chairperson Arvind Dham, in a money laundering case arising out of an alleged multi-crore bank fraud, setting aside an earlier order of the Delhi High Court (HC) that had refused him relief.
A bench of justice Sanjay Kumar and justice Alok Aradhe overturned the August 2025 decision of the HC which had denied bail to Mr Dham on the grounds that his release could jeopardise the trial and undermine public confidence in the justice system. While allowing the appeal, the apex court directed Mr Dham to surrender his passport to the authorities as a condition of bail.
On 9 July 2024, Mr Dham was arrested by the directorate of enforcement (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with alleged irregularities involving ACIL Ltd, an Amtek group company. He has remained in custody since then.
The case against Mr Dham stems from first information reports (FIR) registered by the central bureau of investigation (CBI) in December 2022 on complaints filed by IDBI Bank and Bank of Maharashtra. The Banks alleged that Amtek group companies had defaulted on loans through cheating, fraud and criminal breach of trust, causing substantial losses to lenders.
ED has estimated the overall fraud figure to be around ₹25,000 crore to ₹27,000 crore, while also citing a wrongful loss of ₹673.35 crore to the two banks named in the FIR.
Acting on the SC’s directions issued on 27 February 2024, ED initiated its money laundering probe and registered an enforcement case. The agency has alleged that Mr Dham was the ultimate beneficial owner and the 'controlling mind' behind the alleged fraud, which was executed through systematic manipulation of financial records.
According to ED, assets and profits of Amtek group companies were overstated by more than ₹15,000 crore, fictitious sales and purchases were shown, over 500 shell companies were floated, and dummy directors were installed to siphon off public funds. The agency has described the alleged scheme as a complex and sustained exercise in layering and concealment of proceeds of crime.
While rejecting Mr Dham’s bail plea last year, the Delhi High Court had held that the allegations against him related to an economic offence of exceptional magnitude, involving grave losses to public sector banks (PSBs). The HC had also ruled that being 'sick and infirm' was not a passport to bail in serious economic offences, observing that his medical condition could be managed in custody under judicial supervision. It had further noted that the trial was at a nascent stage and that the stringent twin conditions for bail under Section 45 of the PMLA were not satisfied.
Before the SC, Mr Dham argued that he was a 64-year-old senior citizen who had spent over a year in custody, that the ED investigation against him was complete and that the trial was unlikely to begin soon as the CBI probe was still ongoing. He sought the benefit of the exception carved out for 'sick and infirm' persons under the PMLA.
ED opposed the plea, reiterating that the scale and complexity of the alleged fraud disentitled him from bail and that his release could affect the trial. Despite these objections, the apex court allowed the appeal and granted bail, marking a significant development in one of the country’s largest bank fraud and money laundering cases.
Last year, ED filed a supplementary prosecution complaint before the special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) Court in New Delhi in connection with an alleged ₹34,000 crore bank fraud involving the Amtek group of companies, its promoter Arvind Dham, family members, chartered accountants (CAs), bankers, resolution professionals (RPs) and stock market operators.
The complaint, filed on 1 August 2025, stems from investigations ordered by the Supreme Court in February 2024 while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) over alleged large-scale loan diversion by the group.
The agency says its investigation uncovered a ₹1,000-crore loss to foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) in Castex Technologies, one of the group’s companies. Mumbai-based stock operators allegedly rigged share prices using funds siphoned from bank loans.
Fifteen group companies were dragged to the national company law tribunal (NCLT) by creditors and resolved with an average haircut of 81%, meaning lenders recovered only 19% of their claims. The ED alleges that, before insolvency proceedings began, the promoters had alienated assets through undervalued transfers to front entities and benami owners to keep them out of NCLT’s reach.
Personal insolvency proceedings against Mr Dham revealed claims exceeding ₹38,000 crore from 23 creditors, against which he offered only ₹35 crore. The probe also identified about 500 shell companies used to acquire and hold assets worth over ₹6,000 crore through multiple layers, with the promoters as ultimate beneficiaries.
