Yamuna e-way: SC appalled by the arrest of court-appointed Anuj Jain

GREATER NOIDA: Appalled by the arrest of Anuj Jain, the courtappointed Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) for managing the affairs of debt-ridden Jaypee Infratch Limited (JIL), in a criminal case by Uttar Pradesh police, the Supreme Court on Tuesday granted him bail and ordered his immediate release while also issuing a show cause notice to an errant police officer.

Jain was arrested from Mumbai on Monday night. The Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) filed a police complaint against Jain on February 24, alleging that he did not implement the recommendations made by IIT Delhi due to which an accident took place on the Yamuna Expressway, in which seven persons died on February 23.

HT tried to reach Jain, but he was unavailable for comment.

The apex court observed that the police official dealing with the case is not familiar with the provision of privilege of interim resolution appointed by the court under the Insolvency Bankruptcy Code (IBC). “We are appalled to see that the manner in which the Uttar Pradesh Police has handled this case emanating from FIR No.0098/2021, registered at Police Station Beta-ii in District Greater Noida, including to take the extreme step to arrest the IRP, Anuj Jain, who was working in that capacity pursuant to the order passed by the court and entrusted with the functioning of the company in question,” the apex court bench of justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari said.

“In the meantime, we direct immediate release of the applicant, Anuj Jain, who is presently in custody of Police Station, Beta-ii, District Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh and had been produced today … before the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Gautam Buddh Nagar,” the bench ordered.

Ordering Greater Noida police and the magistrate concerned to release Jain without imposing any condition upon receiving its order through e-mail, a bench of asked the office of the Registrar General (Judicial) of the apex court to make a call to the office of the judicial magistrate to ensure immediate compliance.

The bench expressed surprise over the response of the state government that the investigating officer, Bijendra Singh, was of the view that the IRP may leave India at any time to avoid the prosecution and for securing his presence thought it necessary to arrest him from Mumbai.

“We will examine this aspect of the matter elaborately at appropriate time by treating this application as substantive writ petition filed by the applicant under Article 32 of the Constitution of India and to be numbered accordingly,” it ordered.

Arun Vir Singh, the chief executive officer of YEIDA, said, “We filed FIR against him because he kept delaying implementation of safety features on Yamuna Expressway. He is yet to select a private agency that can install crash barrier on Expressway. He did not hire an agency and failed to install major safety features despite repeated notices to him issued by the authority.”

Vishal Pandey, additional DCP Greater Noida, said Jain was arrested from Mumbai on Monday night. “He was produced before the court in Surajpur on Tuesday,” he said.

On February 24, Yamuna Authority’s senior project manager Vishwas Kumar Tyagi had filed a case against Jain at Beta 2 police station.