Delhi HC allows Vivo to operate its bank accounts but with conditions

New Delhi, July 13

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday allowed Chinese smartphone maker Vivo to operate its bank accounts on the condition of furnishing a bank guarantee of Rs 950 crore and maintaining Rs 250 crore in its accounts.

A bench of Justice Yashwant Varma, while hearing Vivo's plea seeking permission to operate its frozen bank accounts, asked the company to comply with the directions within seven working days.

The court also directed the Chinese firm to submit details about its bank activities and remittances to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and posted the matter for further hearing on July 28.

In the last hearing, Vivo's counsels -- Siddharth Luthra and Siddharth Aggarwal -- submitted that nine bank accounts have been frozen which hold nearly Rs 250 crore.

Last week, the ED had conducted searches on the premises of Chinese companies, including smartphone maker Vivo, at 44 locations in 22 states.

The probe agency argued that Vivo remitted 50 per cent of its total sales, i.e., Rs 62,476 crore, to China.

It earned nearly Rs 1.20 lakh crore in the last two years but remitted nearly half of it to avoid paying taxes, the ED alleged. This caused huge losses to the Indian incorporated companies, the ED said.

Following the raids, Vivo moved the high court. In its plea, Vivo said the orders against it are in stark contravention to the mandate of Section 17 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), as the same do not entail any reasons for freezing, let alone cogent "reasons to believe" as to why the bank account should be frozen. It is a generic order passed mechanically without any application of mind, the plea said.

It said the total non-application of mind and arbitrariness is evident from the fact that even the amount in question has not been quantified by the respondent and blanket orders for freezing all the bank accounts have been passed, causing substantial and irreparable hardship to the petitioner and gravely impacting its business and reputation.

It further said the frozen accounts are used for the payment of salaries and statutory dues, opening of letter of credits for the petitioner's operations, and for all kinds of expenses necessary for the day-to-day functioning of the petitioner.

"Monthly payments of around Rs 2,826 crore have to be made towards statutory dues, salaries, rent, monies for daily business operations etc. Due to the freezing of the bank accounts, the petitioner will be unable to honour its aforesaid obligations, not only towards various statutory authorities, but also towards its employees and customers," it stated.