Delhi court dismisses Awanish Kumar's bail plea for misappropriation of funds

New Delhi [India], February 20 : A Delhi court has dismissed the bail plea of Awanish Kumar Mishra, Director of Allied Financial Services Pvt Ltd (AFSPL), who was arrested by Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) for alleged misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 345 crore.
Reetesh Singh, Additional Sessions Judge of Karkardooma Court complex in an order passed on February 18 said that "accused Awanish Kumar Mishra who faces the same set of allegations as that of co-accused V. Hansprakash will also be in the same boat. However, as the Counsel for the complainant has submitted that he has filed an application for cancellation of bail against accused Awanish Kumar Mishra which is pending in another Court, it will not be appropriate for this Court to make any comment about the existence or absence of any order of interim bail on the basis of which the accused Awanish Kumar Mishra is not in jail. As far as the present bail application is concerned, for the reasons recorded above, the same has no merit and is dismissed," said the Court.
According to the EoW, Mishra was arrested on the complaint of Dalmia Cements Limited regarding allegations of misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 345 crore.
Advocate Vijay Aggarwal appearing for complainant Dalmia Cements raised the preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the bail application of the accused Awanish Kumar Mishra as he was not "in custody", though as per the mandate of law, the accused was required to be in custody before moving an application for regular bail.
Aggarwal also argued before the Court that Mishra was involved in a grave economic offence involving huge conspiracy, which has affected the moral fabric of the society coupled with the factum that economic offences corrode the very fabric of democratic governance and probity in public life which are considered to be the gravest offences against the society and persons alleged to have committed such offences are necessarily required to be treated differently in the matter of bail.
According to the complaint, Awanish Kumar Mishra, Director of Allied Financial Services Pvt Ltd is alleged to have fraudulently transferred the credentials of the complainant in the account opening form and fed wrong credentials on the NSDL server to deprive the complainant of getting an alert message for each transaction and that the accused Awanish Kumar Mishra further fraudulently transferred the mutual fund units of the complainant worth Rs.344.07 crores by using delivery instruction slips bearing forged signatures of authorized signatories of the complainant companies.
The said mutual fund units were further pledged to IL&FS Securities Services Ltd (ISSL) for getting margin in derivative trading segments and ISSL and its officials namely V. Hansprakash had mala-fide facilitated the accused Awanish Kumar Mishra and AFSPL in using the said fraudulently transferred mutual fund units for margin.