Bail in economic offences requires stringent evaluation of conduct and serious consideration of public interest, reflecting the need for deterrence against financial malpractices.

JUDGMENT

Swarana Kanta Sharma, J. The present application has been filed by the petitioner seeking bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898. The petitioner had earlier filed a bail application bearing No. 1655/2022 before this court, impugning the order dated 18.05.2022 passed by the ld. Sessions Judge declining the bail of the petitioner. During the course of proceedings in bail application no. 1655/2022, vide an order dated 02.06.2022, this Court had directed the petitioner to pay a sum of Rs.3 crores to the complainant i.e. HSBC Bank. The aforesaid direction had been issued on account of willingness shown by the petitioner herself. Even the timeline for making the payment had been decided with the consent of the petitioner.

2. However, the petitioner subsequently approached the Court seeking waiver of the directions imposed in the order dated 02.06.2022. Eventually, the petitioner sought permission to withdraw the bail application altogether.

3. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the order dated 02.06.2022 had been passed based on the willingness shown by the petitioner to pay money to the complainant and not on merits of the case. It is stated that the petitioner has the right to have her bail application decided on merits and thus, the present fresh bail application has been filed.

4. It is the case of the complainant that the applicant is one of the directors of M/s Compact Disk India Limited which availed a loan of Rs.19 Crores approximately from the complainant. The said loan was not utilised for the designated purposed for which the it had been sanctioned, rather, the loan amount was diverted to some companies which are actually owned by the applicant. It is also submitted that the applicant executed a deed of personal guarantee and submitted the certificate of her individual financial wealth issued by CA Sh. Suresh Goyal. The issuance of certificate was denied by the CA and he disclosed in his statement to police that his signatures have been forged on the certificate. The FSL report was inconclusive and thus it cannot be said that the signatures are or are not of the CA concerned.

5. In the impugned order passed by the ld. ASJ, the bail application of the applicant has been dismissed considering no submissions were made regarding the allegations of diversion of funds by the counsel for the applicant, nor had the applicant endeavoured to negotiate a settlement with the complainant despite undertaking before the court on 04.05.2022 that they will settle the matter with the complainant.

6. With regard to the above submissions and facts before me, I find it appropriate to refer to the observations of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan, [(2004) 7 SCC 528]:

"...12. In regard to cases where earlier bail applications have been rejected there is a further onus on the court to consider the subsequent application for grant of bail by noticing the grounds on which earlier bail applications have been rejected and after such consideration if the court is of the opinion that bail has to be granted then the said court will have to give specific reasons why in spite of such earlier rejection the subsequent application for bail should be granted." 10.1 In the case of Neeru Yadav vs. State of UP & Anr., (2016) 15 SCC 422, it is held by this Court in para 11 as under:

"11. It is a well settled principle of law that while dealing with an application for grant of bail, it is the duty of the Court to take into consideration certain factors and they basically are: (