Point of Law : While granting bail, court has to keep in mind the factors like nature of accusation, nature of evidence in support thereof, severity of punishment which conviction will entail, character of accused, circumstances which are peculiar to accused, reasonable possibility of securing presence of accused during trial, reasonable apprehension of the witnesses being tampered with, large interests of public/State and other similar considerations.

JUDGMENT :

SHEKHAR KUMAR YADAV, J.

1. Heard Mr. Anurag Khanna, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Mr. Kartikeya Saran, Ms. Gunjan Jadwani and Mr. Amar Gahlot, learned counsel for the applicant and Mr. S.P. Singh, learned Solicitor General of India assisted by Mr. Manoj Kumar Singh, learned counsel for the respondent.

2. This bail application under Section 439 of Code of Criminal Procedure has been filed by the applicant seeking enlargement on bail in Sessions Trial No.577 of 2020 (Serious Fraud Investigation Officer vs. Rotomac Global Pvt. Limited and 68 others) arising from Complaint filed under Section 212 (14) of the Companies Act, 2013 in respect of offences under Sections 36(c) r/w/s. 447, 448 of the Companies Act, 2013 and Section 211 r/w/s 628 of the Companies Act, 1956.

3. It transpires from the record that initially the applicant moved an interim bail application before the Apex Court by filing Writ Petition (Criminal) No.126 of 2020, which came to be disposed of directing the applicant to approach this Court by filing bail application and, thereafter, the applicant approached this Court by filing bail application under section 439 Cr.P.C. being Criminal Misc Bail Application No.12047 of 2020, which came to be disposed of by order dated 05.05.2020 whereby the prayer for interim bail of the applicant was rejected and liberty was granted to the applicant to move regular bail application. However, in the meantime, the order dated 05.05.2020 has also been challenged by the applicant before the Apex Court by filing SLP Criminal No.2393 of 2020, which came to be disposed of vide order dated 28.05.2020 as not maintainable and liberty was granted to the applicant to file a regular bail application. Hence, the present bail application has been filed seeking regular bail under Section 439 Cr.P.C. read with Section 212(6) of the Companies Act, before this Court.

4. The encapsulated facts of the case are that the applicant is said to have been arrested in pursuance of the arrest order dated 19.03.2020 by the Arresting Officer, who is Assistant Director of Ministry of Corporate Affairs for the offence under Sections 447 and 448 of the Companies Act, 2013. Copies of grounds of arrest were also served on the applicant on 19.3.2020. In pursuance of Order No.03/117/2018CLII (NR) dated 21.02.2018 and Order No.7/117/2108/CLII dated 22.08.2019 under Sections 447 and 448 of the Companies Act, 2013 issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India (hereinafter referred to as the MCA) which in exercise of power under Sections 212 (1) (c) of the Companies Act, 2013 had ordered for investigation into affairs of Rotomac Global Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the 'RGPL') and 10 others and Frost International Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'F.I.L.') by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office respondent (hereinafter referred to as 'the SFIO') in the public interest. Pursuant to the order of MCA, the Director SFIO vide Order No. SFIO/Inv./AOI/201819 dated 20.06.2018 had appointed a team of officers for carrying out investigation into the affairs of the Company. The applicant is alleged to be the Director and CEO of M/s F.I.L. Public Limited Company incorporated under the Companies Act.

5. During investigation, it is found that the applicant and similarly placed co-accused, out of whom some are of foreign entities, who are said to be the Directors in different companies, used to run a fraudulent Merchanting Trade (MT) business and submitted false/deceptive statements/financials to different Banks to avail credit facility in the form of opening of Letter of Credit and thereby caused loss to the Public Sector Banks.

6. It also revealed that out of the documents required for opening the Letter of Credit, applicant along with similarly placed other co accused persons knowingly submitted Letter of Credit opening request along with false/deceptive and misleading documents so as to induce the banks to rely upon the said documents and to giv