The High Court ruled that bail cannot be granted without satisfying the stringent conditions of Section 212(6) of the Companies Act, emphasizing the necessity of compliance with statutory requirements for arrest and bail.

JUDGMENT

Kuldeep Tiwari, J.

Since common questions of law are involved in all these petitions and the reliefs craved to be reaped therein are also alike, therefore, all these petitions are amenable for being decided through a common verdict.

2. To be precise, the gravamen of all these petitions is ingrained in the impugned orders of bail, inasmuch as, despite the respondents allegedly being the masterminds of a huge financial scam, yet they have been enlarged on regular bail by the learned trial Court. For the sake of brevity, the facts are being extracted from CRM-M-65367-2023.

3. The prime grievance woven by the petitioner in the instant petition, is that, the learned trial Court has, while granting regular bail to the respondent, turned a blind eye to the material facts indicative of respondent's culpability in commission of a serious economic offence. Consequently, the instant petition, as cast under Section 482 read with Section 439(2) of the Cr.P.C. and wherein becomes assailed the order dated 19.12.2023, aims at securing the relief of cancellation of bail granted to the respondent.

4. It would be apt to record here that the respondent had, before his succeeding in securing the concession of bail vide the impugned order (supra), made three unsuccessful attempts in that regard. Therefore, the fourth bail application, which found favour with the learned trial Court and whereon the impugned order (supra) has been passed, has caused pain to the petitioner.

Submissions Of The Learned Counsel For The Petitioner

5. The learned counsel for the petitioner has vociferously opposed the observations recorded by the learned trial Court in the impugned order (supra). He has argued that when the respondent had never assailed the validity of the remand order dated 03.06.2021, therefore finality was/is to be assigned to the said order, and as such, there was no jurisdiction vested with the learned trial Court to, in the impugned order (supra), make any comment upon its own order, rather such an approach tantamounts to review of its own order by the learned trial Court, authority whereof clearly does not vest with it. Not only this, the learned trial Court has, while reviewing the remand order, passed adverse comments upon its predecessor/author of the remand order, which were totally uncalled for.

6. The learned counsel for the petitioner has next argued that the sole ground assigned by the learned trial Court behind grant of bail to the respondent, is anchored upon the decisions rendered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, in cases titled as "Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India & Ors.", Criminal Appeal Nos.3051-3052 of 2023, Decided on: 03.10.2023, and, "Ram Kishor Arora v. Directorate of Enforcement", CLP (Crl.) No.12863 of 2023, Decided on: 15.12.2023, inasmuch as, the arrest of the respondent has been declared illegal, on account of non-compliance of the mandate carried in section 212(8) of the Companies Act, 2013 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act of 2013'). The above observation attracts rebuttal from the learned counsel for the petitioner, inasmuch as, the learned trial Court failed to recognize that when no formal arrest took place in the present matter, therefore, there does not arise any question of infringement of the jural parameters laid down in the judgments (supra). Moreover, it is not even obligatory for the petitioner-Serious Fraud Investigation Office (hereinafter referred to as the 'S.F.I.O.') to make a formal arrest of each and every accused, who is already in judicial custody in other cases. It is within the legal framework for the prosecution agency to seek remand of accused to judicial custody, instead of seeking production of such accused before it. In this regard, he has placed reliance upon the judgment drawn by the Madras High Court in "State by Inspector of Police v. K.N. Nehru & Ors.", 2011 SCC Online Mad 1984.

7. Furthermore, the learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that the application for production warrants