Delhi HC directs CBI to give 7 days notice before arresting businessman Manoj Jayaswal
Jan 31, 2023
New Delhi [India], January 31 : The Delhi High Court has granted interim relief to businessman Manoj Jayaswal in an alleged bank loan fraud case directing the CBI to give seven days' notice before arresting him for custodial interrogation.
The bench of Justice Jasmeet Singh, Delhi High Court granted interim relief to Manoj Jayaswal, in a petition seeking the quashing of FIR registered by CBI on the basis of a written complaint submitted by Union Bank of India alleging a fraud of Rs 4,037 crore on the part of Manoj Jayaswal, the Director of the Corporate Power Ltd.
"If it requires custodial interrogation of the petitioner, they shall give him advance notice of 7 working days," the court directed CBI.
The Court in an order passed on January 24, 2023, clarified that this order is being passed in view of peculiar facts and circumstances noted above and shall not be treated as a condition precedent in any other.
Appearing for the Petitioner, Advocate Vijay Aggarwal argued that the CBI in registration of the FIR had severely prejudiced the rights of his client as the same was done with an inordinate and inexplicable delay of 8 years, upon which the CBI took a further 2 years to register the FIR, which in teeth of the landmark judgment of the Supreme Court in Lalita Kumari Vs government of Uttar Pradesh.
Further, Advocate Vijay Aggarwal stated that the lackadaisical manner in which the FIR had been registered against his client, where from the face of the FIR itself, blatant inconsistencies in fact could be seen, as the CBI has stated on record that there had no delay, when the facts of the case and the complaint of the Union Bank of India speaks otherwise.
"The action of initiating criminal action against the Petitioner is in teeth of an order of a Civil Court which had directed the Union Bank of India to maintain status quo and not to initiate any criminal action against the Petitioner," Aggarwal stated.
Special Public Prosecutor appearing on behalf of the CBI, argued that the petitioner seeking a stay on the investigation which is yet a nascent investigation, and that the same was not tenable in law.
The Court the procedure as ascribed by RBI in it's Circular titled Revised Guidelines on CDR and Circular titled Master Directors on frauds - Classification and reporting by commercial banks and select FIs on July 1 in 2016 which goes to show that there can be no fraud in the accounts of company which has been admitted/ or the proposal for Corporate Debt Restructuring has been accepted by the lenders as in the case of his client where the Company of the Petitioner was accepted into the CDR process on April 26 in 2013, he added.
"Even procedure prescribed by the Central Vigilance Commission, the Parent Body of the CBI, in its circulars had not been followed in the present matter despite the same being mandatory for the investigating agency to obtain a prior opinion of Advisory Board of Banking Fraud, constituted by the Central Vigilance Commission to act as the first level of examination in cases of fraud amounting to more than Rs 50 Crores, wherein the present case no such opinion has been obtained," Aggrawal argued.
