Absconding accused can’t get anticipatory bail: HC

An accused, evading the law and declared a proclaimed offender, cannot be accorded the benefit of anticipatory bail, the Delhi high court has ruled.

An accused, evading the law and declared a proclaimed offender, cannot be accorded the benefit of anticipatory bail, the Delhi high court has ruled.

HT Image

"Normally, when the accused is absconding and has been declared a proclaimed offender, there is no question of granting anticipatory bail," said Justice Manmohan.

The court made the remarks while dismissing the anticipatory bail plea of one SL Maloo, a former director of five private firms, in a cheating case.

Maloo, who was once a director of five firms including complainant M/s Universal Finance Traders Ltd, had taken a loan of Rs. 1 crore from creditor Sudesh Madhok after depositing title deed of a flat located at Tolstoy Marg here, the FIR said.

The accused then tried to encash the property by fraudulently transferring ownership rights of the flat to Universal Finance Traders, it said.

The complainant firm was later taken over by a new management in 2007 through a share purchase agreement under a belief that the flat belonged to the firm, the FIR said.

The complainant firm, which was told that the original title deeds were missing, lodged the FIR after it came to know that the accused had offered to sell the flat to repay the loan of Rs. 1 crore to creditor Madhok.