NEW DELHI: On June 20, after protests from legal professionals representing a number of bar associations, ED was compelled to withdraw summons issued to senior advocate Pratap Venugopal in reference to a cash laundering probe towards Religare’s former chairperson Rashmi Saluja.4 months later, the company has named Venugopal as one of many accused, together with Saluja, in its chargesheet filed within the Religare Enterprises case earlier than a particular courtroom in Mumbai for his position within the alleged conspiracy in unlawful allotment of worker inventory possession plans (ESOPs) of CHIL (Care Well being Insurance coverage Ltd), a subsidiary of Religare, during which Venugopal was an impartial director and Saluja was non-executive chairperson.When contacted by TOI, Venugopal stated he has “no feedback to supply”.Saluja, in line with the chargesheet, has been described because the “principal architect of the conspiracy”, who, in connivance with different former executives of the corporate Nitin Aggarwal, Nishant Singhal, Pratap Venugopal and Vaibhav Gawli, illegally acquired fairness curiosity in CHIL by ESOPs. ED has termed the ESOPs thus acquired as “proceeds of crime” and has claimed that this was performed to realize management of the corporate by subverting regulatory mechanisms.Concerning the position of Venugopal, ED says he was then a retainer in Religare and had sought authorized opinion on easy methods to overturn rejection of allotment of ESOPs by regulator Insurance coverage Regulatory and Improvement Authority of India. (IRDAI). ED says, in return for his companies, the lawyer was provided an impartial director’s publish in CHIL and a remuneration of Rs 60 lakh.IRDAI had later directed CHIL to revoke or cancel any ESOPs allotted and in addition imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore on CHIL for non-compliance with regulatory instructions.The company stated 2.2 crore ESOPs had been allotted to Saluja at an undervalued worth of Rs 45.3 when the shares had been at Rs 110 every. Later, the accused made workplace assistant Vaibhav Gawli to file an FIR towards Burmans of Dabur, who had acquired 51% stake within the firm, to forestall them from taking management of Religare.The summons to Venugopal and one other senior advocate had generated sharp reactions from varied bar associations, together with joint pleas filed by SC Bar Affiliation and SC Advocates-on-Document, senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Vijay Hansaria earlier than the CJI-led bench of BR Gavai and Justice Okay Vinod Chandran whereas it was listening to a suo motu case relating to the summons.The bench had stated it will body pointers for businesses and bar them from summoning advocates for authorized opinion or recommendation rendered to shoppers dealing with prosecution.