A Gurugram court has rejected anticipatory bail of Ramesh Sanka, accused of cheating and criminal conspiracy to make false misrepresentation to clients of a construction company that money paid by them for booking of flats in the housing project has been siphoned off by the complainant company.
Sanka, who had worked as Chief Executive Officer of IREO Fund, had taken Rs 10.37 Cr as severance fees before allegedly arm twisting the company to pay back the amount paid for booking the apartments in the Grand Hyatt Residences Project of the complainant company.
The FIR in the case was lodged on July 21, last year on a complaint made by Sanjeev Bindal, authorised representative of IREO Residences Company Pvt Ltd, engaged in business of developing Group Housing Townships, Commercial and other projects in and around Gurugram.
It was alleged in furtherance of the systematic criminal design adopted by the accused Ramesh Sanka, he colluded with the other accused Sumit Kumar, Vivek Sehgal, Col Sanjeev Dhawan, Gurinder Singh and other unknown persons, in order to make wrongful gains at the cost and expense of the complainant company. By using confidential information, he influenced home buyers to lodge complaint against the company and subsequently openly demanded money to withdraw those complaints.
Accused Sanka sought advance bail saying that he has already joined the investigation and submitted documents consisting of 440 pages to the investigating officer. He is assisting the police in the but despite that police is bent upon to arrest the petitioner. Except the offence under section 420 IPC, remaining offences are of bailable nature, his counsel said.
The prosecution opposed the plea for advance bail contending he has misused the client data of the
complainant company and instigated home-buyers/ clients of the complainant company to file complaints/ litigations against the complainant company.
Petitioner is partner in Ghar Samadhan LLP which has managed the number of complaints from home-buyers/ clients against the complainant company and demanded Rs 10 crores from the complainant company to withdraw the said complaints. Therefore, he is required by the police for custodial interrogation and the application for anticipatory bail deserves to be dismissed, it said.
Additional Sessions Judge Ved Prakash Sirohi noted that it is alleged that complainant company is in possession of various audio recordings wherein accused persons are openly asking for huge money for taking back the false and frivolous complaints.
Petitioner is allegedly making repeated calls to the witnesses to depose in his favour and trying to influence the witnesses, it said.
The investigating officer of the case submitted that cell phone and record of the company is to be recovered from the possession of petitioner. The cell phone is required to recover the whatsapp chat and emails of the petitioner with the co-accused.
The judge relied upon the SC judgement in Sumitha Pradeep versus Arun Kumar C K and Anr.- 2022, wherein if was held that even if custodial interrogation not required or necessitated, by itself, cannot be ground to grant anticipatory bail.
"Thus, keeping in view the facts and circumstances, I find no ground to admit the petitioner to anticipatory bail and the application for anticipatory bail stands dismissed," the court said.
