BackDelhi HC cancels bail granted to Shivinder Singh in Religare Finvest case
Justice Suresh Kait said the nature and gravity of accusation against Singh is ‘serious’ and set aside the 3 March order of the trial court granting him bail
PremiumThe Delhi high court on Monday cancelled the bail granted by a city court to Shivinder Mohan Singh, former promoter of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL), in connection with a case pertaining to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL).
The economic offences wing of the Delhi Police registered an FIR in March 2019 after it received a complaint from RFL’s authorized representative Manpreet Suri, against Singh, former REL chairman and managing director Sunil Godhwani, former RFL chief executive officer Kavi Arora, and others, alleging that they had taken loans while managing the firm but had invested the money in other companies.
Suri alleged that these accused put RFL in poor financial condition by disbursing loans to entities with no financial standing and wilfully defaulted in repayments, causing loss to RFL to the tune of ₹2,397 crore, according to the prosecution.
The police had alleged that Singh, in connivance with other co-accused, created the corporate loan book for utilizing the funds of the company for their personal benefits and the corporate loan policy was not followed by the sanctioning authority.
Justice Suresh Kait on Monday said the nature and gravity of accusation against Singh is “serious" and set aside the 3 March order of the trial court granting him bail. The court said Singh’s “continued detention is necessary not only to unearth the conspiracy hatched by him, but also to derive out/trace the siphoned money that he has credited for his personal benefit".
The trial court, while granting bail to Singh, has failed to consider that the present case pertains to a serious economic offence of high magnitude, where large amount of approximately ₹2,400 crore including interest has been siphoned off at the behest of Shivinder Singh and his brother Malvinder Mohan Singh by diverting it through various financial transactions, by granting loan to the shell companies of which they were the directors or promoters or beneficiary in interest, the high court said.
“The grant of bail in a case involving cheating, criminal breach of interest by an agent of such a large magnitude of money, affecting a very large number of people would also have an adverse impact not only on the progress of the case, but also on the trust of the criminal justice system that people repose," Justice Kait said in a 29-page order.
“The (trial court) should have borne in mind the peculiarity of fraud and conspiracy involved in this case and refrained itself from passing a blanket order releasing Shivinder on bail. No doubt on the premise that investigation is complete and accused is behind bars for some time and that trial shall take time, bail can be granted, but only when the offences alleged are of lesser magnitude," the high court said.
The court rejected Singh’s contention that the co-accused have got bail, and said the role attributed to each accused has to be seen independently and reasoning for one may not be binding on the other.
A trial court dismissed on 1 April the bail application of Malvinder Singh, who has also been ascribed a similar role in the present case, it said.
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