On Thursday (September 3, 2020), the top court stayed a bail order granted to the accused of Yes Bank Scam Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan former DHFL promoters by the Bombay High Court.
Last week, the ED moved the Supreme Court against the order of the Bombay High Court of granting bail to the two accused brothers through a Special Leave Petition and the bench comprising of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Ajay Rastogi, and Aniruddha Bose stated the order till the next hearing that is 7th October and said it would look into the legal issue involved in the bail plea. It said the legal issues related to the remand duration need to be investigated.
Kapil and his brother, Dheeraj Wadhawan is co-accused in a money laundering case registered by the federal agency against Yes Bank Ltd. (YBL) co-founder, Rana Kapoor. The Wadhawan brothers were arrested on May 14th by the ED in the said case.
Two agencies namely CBI and the ED are probing the alleged fraud caused to YBL. While the CBI is probing the alleged conspiracy, cheating, and forgery, whereas ED is probing allegations of money laundering.
A bail application was filed by the two accused in Bombay High Court on July 13th for the default of filing a charge-sheet within 60 days.
Justice Bharati Dhangre of Bombay High Court granted bail on a technical ground that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) failed to file its prosecution complaint (equivalent to a charge sheet) within the stipulated time period of 60 days.
The sources state that on 13th July the federal agency filed its supplementary charge-sheet but the due date was 12th July and due to a delay of one day they were granted bail. The ED however insisted that it had filed part of the charge sheet by e-mail a day before the sixty-day period ended. Since10th may they were in judicial custody in the case registered by CBI. After which they remanded to police custody on 14th July.
The Bombay High court while allowing the case said that “As a corollary of the aforesaid discussion, the impugned order passed by the Sessions Judge, excluding the first day of remand while computing the period of 60 days cannot be sustained and is liable to be set aside and the filing of the charge sheet by the Directorate of the Enforcement on 13th July 2020, being after 60 days by excluding the day of remand i.e. 14th May 2020, make the applicants entitled for default bail. They deserve to be released on bail in the light of the right conferred “u/s 167(2)(a)(ii),” if they are prepared to and furnish the bail.”
