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SC cancels Wadhawan brothers bail in bank loan scam case
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) argued the statutory bail was granted even as the agency filed its charge sheet within the deadline
The Supreme Court on Wednesday cancelled the statutory bail granted to former Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) promoters Kapil Wadhawan and his brother, Dheeraj, in a multi-crore bank loan scam case.
A bench of justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal allowed an appeal of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which argued the bail was granted even as the agency filed its charge sheet within the deadline. It said the granting of the bail was a serious error in law and ordered the brothers to be taken into custody.
The CBI maintained that the charge sheet in the case was filed within the 90-day statutory period, and yet the bail was granted.
An accused is entitled to statutory bail under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) if the probe agency fails to file a charge sheet after the probe in a criminal case within 60 or 90 days. In this case, the CBI filed the charge sheet on the 88th day.
A trial court granted the statutory bail to the Wadhawan brothers on December 3, 2022, citing an “incomplete chargesheet.” The CBI filed its report on the investigation in the trial court on October 15, 2022.
The high court in May 2023 said that the investigating agency, in its anxiety of keeping the accused persons in custody, may take a plea that the investigation is complete. “However, the best judge in this regard should be the trial court.”
The high court said the agency’s report could not be treated as the final report on investigation under the CrPC. It held that the decision to grant bail was “based on good reasoning and logic”.
The high court underlined that the charge sheet filed was incomplete and termed it as a “final report” on the investigation to deny statutory bail.
The Wadhawan brothers were arrested in this case on July 19, 2022, based on a Union Bank of India complaint.
The CBI alleged that DHFL, its then CMD Kapil Wadhawan, the then Director Dheeraj Wadhawan, and other accused persons entered into a criminal conspiracy to cheat the consortium of 17 banks led by the Union Bank of India by fraudulently inducing it to sanction loans aggregating ₹42,871.42 crore.
Much of that amount was allegedly siphoned off and misappropriated by alleged falsification of the books of the DHFL and dishonest default in repayment of the legitimate dues of the consortium banks, the CBI said.
A wrongful loss of ₹34,615 crore was caused to the consortium banks in as much as such was the quantification of the outstanding dues as of July 31, 2020, according to the agency.
