Bengaluru Court Grants Bail to WinZO Co-Founder Saumya Rathore, Denies Relief to Paavan Nanda
A Bengaluru sessions court has granted bail to Saumya Singh Rathore, co-founder and director of WinZO Games Pvt Ltd, in a money laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate. However, the court rejected the bail plea of the other co-founder, Paavan Nanda, and allowed the agency to take him into custody for four days.
The order was passed on December 26 by Principal City Civil and Sessions Judge M Chandrashekar Reddy under proceedings related to offences alleged under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
The ED registered the case on November 6, based on FIRs filed in Bengaluru, Rajasthan and Delhi. As part of the investigation, searches were conducted at Rathore’s residence and at WinZO’s offices between November 18 and 22. Both Rathore and Nanda were arrested on November 26.
According to the ED, WinZO’s gaming operations were allegedly manipulated using algorithms and BOTs, leading to wrongful gains of around ₹177 crore. The agency further alleged that funds were diverted to overseas subsidiaries and laundered through cloud infrastructure hosted on Amazon Web Services. The investigation also refers to alleged misuse of user identities and cross-border fund transfers amounting to nearly USD 55 million.
Both accused denied the allegations, claimed they had fully cooperated with the investigation, and questioned the legality of the search and seizure actions.
While granting bail to Rathore, the court observed that she was entitled to the benefit of the proviso to Section 45 of the PMLA, which relaxes the strict bail conditions for women accused. The court noted that she had already undergone sufficient custodial interrogation and that further detention was not necessary. Concerns about evidence tampering, the judge said, could be addressed through strict bail conditions.
Rathore was granted bail on a personal bond of ₹5 lakh with two sureties. She has been directed to surrender her passport, not leave India without court permission, and cooperate with the ongoing investigation.
In contrast, the court held that the stringent bail conditions under Section 45 of the PMLA continued to apply to Nanda. The judge stated that he was not convinced that Nanda had shown he was prima facie not guilty or that he would not influence witnesses or tamper with evidence. The court accepted the ED’s submission that the investigation had become wider and more transnational in nature, involving a large volume of digital and financial data.
As a result, the ED was granted further custody of Nanda from December 27 to December 30, with directions that he should not face any ill-treatment and must be given daily access to his lawyer.
