Mumbai, Oct 13 A special court here has allowed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to produce photocopies of records destroyed in a fire at its office last year as evidence in a 2017 money laundering case.
A fire is an "unnatural calamity beyond the control of human beings", the court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) said in the order passed on Monday.
It permitted the prosecution to rely on photocopies.
The ED submitted that the original case documents, along with records of various other cases, were lost in a fire at its Mumbai Zonal Office.
The photocopies had been prepared by mechanical process during the filing of the charge sheet, ensuring their accuracy, it said.
The defence opposed the application, alleging that the ED failed to prove the existence of the original documents, and also did not establish that the loss was not due to the negligence of its officers.
But the court noted that the spot panchnama (crime scene report) confirmed that the entire record on the 4th floor had been destroyed in the blaze.
The ED case stems from a case registered at the N M Joshi Marg Police Station, where a complainant was allegedly duped over an employment offer in an import-export company.
