MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Friday adjourned the hearing on the petitions filed by top executives of Edelweiss Group, seeking quashing of the FIR registered against them for allegedly abetting the suicide of art director Nitin Desai.
A division bench of justice Nitin W Sambre and justice RN Laddha has now posted the petitions filed by Rashesh Shah, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Edelweiss Group and Raj Kumar Bansal, chairman and CEO of Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company (EARC), for further hearing on Monday. The bench is also likely to consider Shah and Bansal’s plea for interim orders restraining police from taking any coercive action against them.
On Friday, when the petitions came up for hearing before the bench, senior advocate Amit Desai argued on behalf of the Edelweiss executives briefly and also pointed out the case laws on the topic of abetment to suicide in support of their claim that no ingredients of the offence were present in the case.
In his petition, Bansal stated that he had not even spoken to Desai in the past two years and in any case, he is not involved in day-to-day functioning of the EARC. He claimed that the pursuit of legal remedies against Desai’s ND’s Art World by the EARC was strictly in accordance with the law and the FIR does not point out any specific actions which could be said to have abetted the suicide and therefore registration of the FIR against him was ex facie illegal and arbitrary.
{{/usCountry}}In his petition, Bansal stated that he had not even spoken to Desai in the past two years and in any case, he is not involved in day-to-day functioning of the EARC. He claimed that the pursuit of legal remedies against Desai’s ND’s Art World by the EARC was strictly in accordance with the law and the FIR does not point out any specific actions which could be said to have abetted the suicide and therefore registration of the FIR against him was ex facie illegal and arbitrary.
{{/usCountry}}Apart from Rashesh Shah and Bansal, two other Edelweiss executives Keyur Mehta, Smit Shah and interim resolution professional Jitendra Kothari have also filed petitions for quashing the FIR registered against them. All the petitions are being heard together.
Art director Desai, who had worked on several Bollywood hits like 1942: A Love Story, Lagaan and Jodha Akbar, was found dead in his ND Studios, run by his firm ND’s Art World at Hatnoli in Khalapur tehsil of Raigad district on August 2.
Two days later, the Khalapur police registered an FIR based on the complaint lodged by Desai’s wife Neha, booking Rashesh Shah, Bansal, Mehta and Smit Shah and Kothari, an interim resolution professional appointed by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), to take over management and operation of ND’s Art World and come out with a resolution plan.
She informed the police that her husband had reached the studio around 2am on August 2 and before going to bed instructed his caretaker, Yogesh Thakur, to send some voice notes that he had recorded in his voice recorder to his lawyer, advocate Vrinda Vichare.
Neha informed the police that in the voice notes her husband had narrated how the Edelweiss executives lured him with big promises in taking a huge loan and later harassed him in the name of recovery of the loan and forced him to end his life.
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