The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought response from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on the bail plea of former MD and CEO of YES Bank, Rana Kapoor, in a money laundering case related to the wrongful loss of ₹466.51 crore to the bank.
Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri issued notice on Mr. Kapoor’s plea and listed the case for further hearing on March 11.
Last month, the trial court had denied the relief of bail to Mr. Kapoor, noting that the allegations against him were most grave and serious in nature.
The trial court had, however, granted bail to 15 other accused — B. Hariharan, Abishek S. Pandey, Rajendra Kumar Mangal, Raghubir Kumar Sharma, Anil Bhargava, Tapsi Mahajan, Surendra Kumar Khandelwal, Sonu Chadha, Harsh Gupta, Ramesh Sharma, Pawan Kumar Agarwal, Amit Mamtani, Ashish Agarwal, Amit Kumar, and Vinod Bahety — in the case.
Mr. Kapoor had moved the bail application before the trial court after he was summoned by the court which took cognisance of a charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The application was opposed by the ED on the grounds that Mr. Kapoor was instrumental in the generation of the “proceeds of crime”.
The Judge observed that the 15 accused were “only hands so as to say and as per the averments mentioned in the complaint appeared to have been doing certain acts/omissions, while seemingly taking instructions from either accused Gautam Thapar or accused Rana Kapoor, as their agents/ employees”.
The court had, in October last year, taken cognizance of the ED’s prosecution complaint, an equivalent of a charge sheet, against the accused persons in the case, saying there were sufficient grounds to proceed against them.
According to the ED, the case was registered against Gautam Thapar, Avantha Realty Ltd. (ARL), Oyster Buildwell Pvt. Ltd. (OBPL), and others alleging criminal breach of trust, cheating, criminal conspiracy, and forgery for diversion or misappropriation of public money during the period 2017 to 2019.
Earlier, the ED had told the Delhi Court that the investigation revealed that approximately ₹500 crore proceeds of crime, were laundered through OBPL, Jhabua Power Limited (JPL), Jhabua Power Investment Ltd. (JPIL), Avantha Power and Infrastructure Ltd. (APIL), ARL, etc. which were being controlled and beneficially owned directly or indirectly by Mr. Thapar.
