Bank fraud case: Court to hear bizman's bail plea on Jan 3

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) told a court here today that it was likely to file a charge sheet soon against Delhi-based businessman Gagan Dhawan, who was arrested in a Rs 5,000-crore money laundering case.
Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma, who was scheduled to hear Dhawan's bail application today, posted the matter for January 3, considering the submissions made by Special Public Prosecutor Nitesh Rana on behalf of the ED.
In his bail plea, the accused had sought the relief saying he was not required for further investigation and that no purpose would be served by keeping him in custody.
Dhawan, arrested on November 1, was sent to judicial custody on November 15 by the court after Rana contended that the accused was not needed for further custodial interrogation.

The ED had alleged that Dhawan had facilitated the directors of Gujarat-based pharma firm Sterling Biotech Ltd (SBL) in buying several properties and helped them misuse and divert the credit facilities of several banks, totalling Rs 5,000 crore.
"An amount of Rs 1.5 crore was received by the accused from the SBL group. Prior to that, the amount of bank loans was rotated in various companies of the SBL group," according to the agency.

The lower court had, on November 14, issued non-bailable warrants against two other persons -- SBL directors Nitin and Chetan Sandesara. The agency told the court that Chetan might have left the country.

Dhawan was arrested in an alleged bank fraud case, involving SBL, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The firm as well as Dhawan were also being probed by the ED for allegedly bribing senior income tax department officials in an earlier criminal complaint.
The CBI had recently booked Sterling Biotech, its directors Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Sandesara, Rajbhushan Omprakash Dixit, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara and Vilas Joshi, chartered accountant Hemant Hathi, former director, Andhra Bank, Anup Garg and some unidentified persons in connection with the alleged bank fraud case.
It had alleged that the company had taken loans of over Rs 5,000 crore from a consortium led by Andhra Bank, which had turned into non-performing assets.

The FIR had also alleged that the total pending dues of the group companies were Rs 5,383 crore as on December 31, 2016. The ED had taken cognisance of this FIR to lodge the money laundering case against them.