Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Bank fraud case: HC grants bail to Dhoot
Bench calls his arrest illegal; questions CBI investigation, special court’s remand order
K A Y Dodhiya
MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Friday granted interim bail to Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Dhoot on the grounds that his arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the ICICI Bank fraud case was not in compliance with the law.
The court also raised questions over the central agency’s investigation and the special CBI court’s order remanding Dhoot in judicial custody.
“It appears that the extension of custody was sought for confronting the petitioner with the co-accused – Chanda Kochhar and Deepak Kochhar. However, there is no satisfactory answer from the investigating agency as to why for three years it has neither confronted all the accused with one another nor demonstrated the progress of the investigation by placing the case diary before the remanding court,” a division bench of justice Revati Mohite Dere and justice P K Chavan said.
The bench also said the special court had failed to discharge its duty. “It is manifested from the impugned order passed by the remanding court that no serious efforts had been made to scrutinise the application seeking detention of the petitioner as well as the case diary presented before it. Noncompliance with section 41 and 41A of CrPC is therefore apparent.”
The onus of recording satisfaction while permitting arrest or granting extension was not only the prerogative of the investigating officer but even the remanding judge, which was not done, the HC said.
“The observations of the learned judge that there was a due compliance with section 41 and 41A of CrPC are casual and appear to be based upon ipse dixit of the investigating officer. It is apparent that the remanding court had not recorded its satisfaction as to what persuaded him to authorise the detention of the petitioner after going through the case diary produced by the respondent no.1 (CBI),” it said.
The court ordered the release of Dhoot on furnishing a cash security of ₹1 lakh for a period of two weeks and directed Dhoot to execute a personal bond of ₹1 lakh with one or more sureties in the like amount on or before the completion of two weeks.
Dhoot had approached the HC after Chanda Kochhar, former MD and CEO of ICICI Bank, and her husband Deepak Kochhar got bail earlier this month. The HC had then said that their arrest was “not in conformity with provisions of law”.