DHFL case: Denied bail, Yes Bank founder's wife, daughters move HC

Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor's wife Bindu and daughters Roshni and Radha Kapoor Khanna on Monday approached Bombay High Court challenging a special court's order refusing them bail in a corruption and cheating case involving private sector lender DHFL.

The three, in their bail pleas, said the special CBI court had gravely erred in observing that the accusations against them, prima facie, show complicity in co-fraudulently and dishonestly receiving loans as quid pro quo for favours shown by Yes Bank to DHFL.

The pleas were on Monday mentioned before a single bench of Justice Bharati Dangre seeking urgent reliefs, and the court said it would hear the applications on Wednesday.

A special CBI court had, on September, 18 refused to grant them bail stating that prima facie loss of Rs 4000 crore was caused to the bank through illegal acts.

The court, which remanded them in 14-day judicial custody, said the three did not deserve any sympathy for being women or the mother of small kids.

In their bail pleas filed separately in HC, Bindu Kapoor, Roshni Kapoor and Radha Kapoor Khanna, who are currently lodged in Byculla women's prison here, sought for the CBI court order to be quashed and set aside as they were grossly illegal and untenable.

The pleas said they were never arrested during the course of investigation and had extended full cooperation to the CBI.

The entire evidence in the case is documentary in nature and is already in the custody of the CBI, and, hence, the question of tampering with documents or evidence does not arise, the pleas said, adding the three had not played any role in the alleged transactions nor did they have any role in Yes Bank or in its day-to-day affairs.

As per the CBI, Rana Kapoor, who is presently in jail in connection with a related case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate, had entered into a criminal conspiracy with DHFL's Kapil Wadhawan.

The probe agency has said that, between April and June, 2018, Yes Bank invested Rs 3,700 crore in short-term debentures of DHFL.

In return, DHFL allegedly paid a kickback of Rs 900 crore to Kapoor in the form of loans to one DoIT Urban Ventures, a firm controlled by Kapoor's wife and daughters.