Benoy Babu, General Manager of Pernod Ricard India, is an accused in Enforcement Directorate's money laundering probe into the alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy. Benoy Babu, General Manager of Pernod Ricard India, accused in Enforcement Directorate’s money laundering probe into the alleged irregularities in the now scrapped excise policy, told the Delhi High Court Thursday that his detention at present will ultimately become punitive as the trial may take a long time to complete. The submission was made by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi for Babu before a single-judge bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma in Babu’s bail plea before the HC. Rohatgi said that unless there is a link between Babu and the facts in the CBI case, there is no way that Babu can be found guilty in the ED case. “It has to be shown that this man who is a small cog in PRI was connected knowingly either with (AAP communication incharge Vijay) Nair or with south group or within both and he facilitated the conversion of the bribe money into legitimate funds…therefore it has to be shown by ED from the facts of the predicate offence that Babu was knowingly helping one or the other from those set of facts of bribe giving or benefit making. What the ED has said has nothing to do with giving or taking of bribe. They are not a predicate offence investigative agency. Their foundation is facts of the predicate offence..they are building a new case, as if they are super CBI. Only the CBI can investigate a predicate offence,” Rohatgi argued. He further said that no money had come to Babu or gone from him. “Please consider broad probabilities for grant of bail. This case will take…20 years for a trial. Ultimately this detention will become punitive. This man has no known criminal antecedents,” Rohatgi urged. Rohatgi said that Pernod Ricard India was asked to give suggestions to the government with regard to the excise policy and they made a suggestion to keep the wholesaler as the Delhi government and not to make it fully private. “The chain contains manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer and customer. If there is a government in the middle, it can look at things. Suggestion was overturned and all became private. And ultimately the policy was scrapped,” Rohatgi said. He further argued that PRI did not make a recommendation of 12% profit for wholesalers. “We were silent. But this policy did so. If the wholesaler was Delhi government, position would have been different,” he said. Rohatgi further argued that the ED’s claim that Pernod Ricard India gave a corporate guarantee of Rs 200 crore cumulatively to a bank with whom five retailers had accounts so that they can get loan against corporate guarantee and conduct business, has nothing to do with the “issue of south group giving bribe to Nair”. Rohatgi further said that giving a corporate guarantee is not a crime and both these issues were foreign to each other. The matter is next listed on April 14. CBI chargesheet was filed on November 24, 2022; ED filed prosecution complaint on November 26, 2022 and a supplementary complaint was filed on January 6. Rohatgi argued that his client was not named in the CBI FIR or chargesheet.