 "Supreme court, SC")
The Supreme Court on Wednesday cancelled the statutory bail granted to former promoters of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL), Kapil Wadhawan and his brother Dheeraj, in connection with a multi-crore bank loan scam case.
The top court directed the trial court to hear the plea for regular bail afresh. "We have no hesitation that the charge sheet having been filed and cognisance being taken in due time, the respondents could not have claimed statutory bail as a right," the court said.
The court set aside the orders of the trial court and the Delhi High Court granting the brothers default or statutory bail.
"The High Court and lower court greatly erred. Trial court to hear afresh on regular bail. Appeals allowed accordingly," the apex court stated.
Statutory bail is a right to bail that arises when the police fail to complete their investigation into a person in judicial custody within a certain period.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in July 2022 booked the Wadhawan brothers, among 13 others, in connection with the case after a complaint was filed by the Union Bank of India (UBI).
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UBI had claimed that it extended credit facilities to DHFL to the tune of Rs 42,871 crore between 2010 and 2018.
UBI, the leader of a 17-member lender consortium, stated that out of the total amount, Rs 34,615 crore is still outstanding as of July 31, 2020. The loan was declared a non-performing asset (NPA) in 2019 and fraud in 2020.
The CBI FIR said the scam started taking shape between April and June 2018 when Yes Bank invested Rs 3,700 crore in short-term debentures of DHFL.
The Wadhwan brothers were arrested in July 2022 and charged under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy to commit an offence), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by banker, merchant, or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 477A (falsification of accounts) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 13 (1) and (2) (criminal misconduct by a public servant) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The Delhi High Court in May 2023 upheld the order of the trial court granting statutory bail to the Wadhwan brothers. The CBI challenged this in the Supreme Court.
The Wadhwan brothers argued that even though more than 60 days had passed since their arrest, the investigation into the matter was not complete. Hence, they were entitled to statutory bail under Section 167 of the Code of Criminal Procedures (CrPC), they contended.
Under CrPC, if the investigation is not complete within the prescribed period of 60 or 90 days (for different offences), the right to bail cannot be denied to the accused.
