The Court emphasized the right to a speedy trial under Article 21, asserting that undue delays in trial violate this right and warrant bail, even for serious offenses.

ORDER :

1. Leave granted.

2. The instant appeals have been filed assailing the orders dated 04.08.2025¹[Bail Application No. 3640/2024] and 16.09.2025²[Bail Application No. 3462/2025] of the High Court of Delhi rejecting the application for grant of regular bail, inter-alia praying for their release.

3. The facts not in dispute are that the appellants were arrayed as accused Nos. 1 and 2 in the FIR/RC bearing No. 2242022A0001, dated 20.06.2022 registered for alleged offences under Section 120-B read with Sections 409 , 420 and 477-A of the INDIAN PENAL CODE , 1860 (for short, ‘IPC’) and Section 13 (2) read with Section 13 (1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (for short, ‘PC Act’). The chargesheet was filed on 15.10.2022 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) proposing to examine 215 witnesses. The appellant was granted default bail on 03.12.2022 which was confirmed by the High Court on 26.07.2023. However, on the challenge made by CBI, this Court vide order dated 24.01.2024, allowed the appeal and set aside the order granting default bail.

4. Facts in brief are that the appellant was the Managing Director of M/s. Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL) which is a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), which had availed loan and credit facility to the tune of Rs. 57,252 crores. As alleged, an amount of Rs. 34,926 crores had been siphoned off by the appellant by making shell companies. CBI investigated the matter and filed supplementary chargesheet arraying 40 individual accused persons and 70 companies, totaling to 110 accused, coupled with 736 witnesses to be examined. It is submitted that arising out of the same transaction, about 11 cases have been registered including the present case, in which the appellant is in custody since April, 2020. It is further submitted that the appellant has been granted bail in all other cases, details thereof are as under:-

5. It is the contention of the appellant that the chargesheet runs into almost four lakh pages and there are 17 trunks of documents which are not part of the chargesheet and not relied upon. In addition, in digital form and in hard disks, data runs into more than 2 TB. The appellant applied for inspection which was allowed by the High Court vide order dated 26.07.2023, directing the CBI to permit for inspection of the un-relied upon documents. The said order has been challenged before this Court and the special leave petition is pending without any stay. Even CBI has not permitted to inspect those documents. In this situation, the trial Court vide order dated 08.01.2024 observed that without permitting the inspection, arguments on the charge could not be started and the CBI is not complying with the orders. The prayer for inspection was objected by the CBI before the trial Court, even after the order of the High Court. The Court directed to comply with the directions as such, and now the inspection was permitted by them which is under process.

6. It is the case of the appellant that the trial Court vide order dated 27.04.2024 observed that keeping in view the number of witnesses, voluminous documents and number of accused persons, even if the case is taken up for hearing on day-to-day basis, then also the trial cannot be concluded within two to three years. It is also submitted that the Judge who was perusing the case is now transferred. The learned senior counsel submitted that out of 110 accused, similar allegations of fraud were made against Sudhakar Shetty, Dinesh Bansal, Rajen Dhruv, Neel Thakkar, Ritesh Virchand Shah and Nik