TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (1) TMI 259
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....Karn, Adv. ORDER 1. Leave granted. 2. The instant appeals have been filed assailing the orders dated 04.08.2025 Bail Application No. 3640/2024 and 16.09.2025 Bail Application No. 3462/2025 of the High Court of Delhi rejecting the application for grant of regular bail, inter-alia praying for their release. 3. The facts not in dispute are that the appellants were arrayed as accused Nos. 1 and 2 in the FIR/RC bearing No. 2242022A0001, dated 20.06.2022 registered for alleged offences under Section 120-B read with Sections 409, 420 and 477-A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short, 'IPC') and Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (for short, 'PC Act'). The chargesheet was filed on 15.10.2022 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) proposing to examine 215 witnesses. The appellant was granted default bail on 03.12.2022 which was confirmed by the High Court on 26.07.2023. However, on the challenge made by CBI, this Court vide order dated 24.01.2024, allowed the appeal and set aside the order granting default bail. 4. Facts in brief are that the appellant was the Managing Director of M/s. Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL....
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....f the appellant that the trial Court vide order dated 27.04.2024 observed that keeping in view the number of witnesses, voluminous documents and number of accused persons, even if the case is taken up for hearing on day-to-day basis, then also the trial cannot be concluded within two to three years. It is also submitted that the Judge who was perusing the case is now transferred. The learned senior counsel submitted that out of 110 accused, similar allegations of fraud were made against Sudhakar Shetty, Dinesh Bansal, Rajen Dhruv, Neel Thakkar, Ritesh Virchand Shah and Nikhil Mansukhani. All these persons have been enlarged on bail in all cases. In addition, all the accused have been granted bail in all the cases except, the appellants in the present case. 7. Furthermore, the leaned senior counsel appearing for the appellant has made an attempt to satisfy this Court that the allegation of siphoning off money taken from the banks is prima facie not tenable because the appellant runs an NBFC and has been in the said business for the last twenty years. The appellant used to take loan from the Banks and lend the same to borrowers who were involved in housing and finances on some hig....
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....arges are not being framed and the possibility of framing of charge at an early date is not expected. If the prosecution would examine 736 witnesses and the documents containing more than 4 lakh pages are required to be looked into, the conclusion of the trial at an early date is not possible. The case is solely based on the documentary evidence and the investigation is completed qua the appellants. Therefore, considering all these facts, prayer to release the appellants on bail is made. 9. Shri Mukul Rohatgi, learned senior counsel submitted and undertook that Court may impose any of the conditions while directing for their release, which shall be abided by them. 10. Per contra, Shri Suryaprakash V Raju, learned Additional Solicitor General and Mr. Zoheb Hossain appearing for the respondent have strenuously urged that it is a case of financial fraud of Rs. 57,242 crores with a consortium of 17 Banks. In such a case in which the economic offences are involved, the delay in trial itself is not sufficient to grant bail. The learned counsel referring to the chargesheet inter-alia has not disputed that in reference to some of the companies, the CBI found that the transactions wit....
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....mpletion of a specified period of detention in custody; unduly long deprivation of liberty pending trial strikes at the heart of Article 21. 13. Aforesaid principle was further elaborated upon by a three judge Bench decision of in Court in Union of India v. K.A. Najeeb, (2021) 3 SCC 713, wherein this Court while balancing the statutory regimes in Special statutes with that of the undertrials constitutional rights, held as follows: "15. This Court has clarified in numerous judgments that the liberty guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution would cover within its protective ambit not only due procedure and fairness but also access to justice and a speedy trial. .... Once it is obvious that a timely trial would not be possible and the accused has suffered incarceration for a significant period of time, the courts would ordinarily be obligated to enlarge them on bail." (emphasis supplied) 14. Fundamentally every accused before this Hon'ble Court seeking bail is an undertrial, clothed with the presumption of innocence, a foundational postulate that does not dissolve merely because allegations are serious or the statute invoked is stringent. It is established th....
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....has been many cases before this Court, which indicate that a separate treatment is meted out in large scale economic offenses regarding grant of bail. Wherein this Court has on many occasions held that strictest standards have to be applied while granting bail involving large scale economic fraud. [See also State of Bihar & Anr. v. Amit Kumar alias Bachcha Rai, (2017) 13 SCC 751. 16. However, this Court in the case of Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI, (2022) 10 SCC 51, while specifically rereferring to the Economic Offences as a specific class of offence, which were categorized as "grave offence" after analyzing the precedents in this field observed that, all economic offences cannot be treated alike. The court further noted that neither the Statute or the jurisprudence in the field supports any rule that bail should be denied in every case of economic offence automatically. This Court observed therein: "90. What is left for us now to discuss are the economic offences. The question for consideration is whether it should be treated as a class of its own or otherwise. This issue has already been dealt with by this Court in P. Chidambaram v. Directorate of Enforcement [P. Chida....
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....ial courts and the High Courts have forgotten a very well-settled principle of law that bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. From our experience, we can say that it appears that the trial courts and the High Courts attempt to play safe in matters of grant of bail. The principle that bail is a rule and refusal is an exception is, at times, followed in breach. On account of non-grant of bail even in straightforward open-and-shut cases, this Court is flooded with huge number of bail petitions thereby adding to the huge pendency. It is high time that the trial courts and the High Courts should recognise the principle that "bail is rule and jail is exception". xx xx xx 54. In the present case, in the ED matter as well as the CBI matter, 493 witnesses have been named. The case involves thousands of pages of documents and over a lakh pages of digitized documents. It is thus clear that there is not even the remotest possibility of the trial being concluded in the near future. In our view, keeping the appellant behind the bars for an unlimited period of time in the hope of speedy completion of trial would deprive his fundamental right to liberty under Article 21 of ....
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....the courts, especially the Constitutional Courts, will have to take a call on a peculiar situation that arises in our justice delivery system. There are cases where clean acquittal is granted by the criminal courts to the accused after very long incarceration as an undertrial. When we say clean acquittal, we are excluding the cases where the witnesses have turned hostile or there is a bona fide defective investigation. In such cases of clean acquittal, crucial years in the life of the accused are lost. In a given case, it may amount to violation of rights of the accused under Article 21 of the Constitution which may give rise to a claim for compensation. 29. As stated earlier, the appellant has been incarcerated for 15 months or more for the offence punishable under the PMLA. In the facts of the case, the trial of the scheduled offences and, consequently, the PMLA offence is not likely to be completed in three to four years or even more. If the appellant's detention is continued, it will amount to an infringement of his fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India of speedy trial. (emphasis supplied) 20. This brings us to the argument of ....
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....SS. Such provision cannot be interpreted to suggest that it's a mandate under law to not release under-trail prisoners unless they complete one-half or one-third of sentence as the case may be. Such interpretation would create havoc in the jails and create great burden on the prison system in India. 23. Therefore, from the above discussion, it is clear that the accused, having been charged with offences having maximum punishment of life imprisonment, cannot claim benefit under Section 479 of BNSS, however on the other hand it cannot be construed as a positive mandate to keep them incarcerated till the completion of trial. Hence, granting them, bail has to be tested on the well devised standards of granting bail as provided under the Code, coupled with personal liberty of the citizens. 24. Coming back to the facts of the case, it is clear that the appellant was made accused on account of non-payment of loan and credit facility availed from a consortium of 17 Banks and divesting of the money in 81 shell companies. Admittedly, this is a case based on documentary evidence and all the accused persons connected with these companies, except the appellants herein have been granted ba....