The court emphasized the importance of balancing the need for continuing investigation with the rights of accused to reasonable bail under the CrPC.

COMMON ORDER

[ Bail Appl..240/2021, Bail Appl..241/2021, Bail Appl..242/2021, Bail Appl..243/2021, Bail Appl..244/2021, Bail Appl..245/2021, Bail Appl..246/2021, Bail Appl..247/2021, Bail Appl..248/2021 ]

Dated this the 7th day of January 2021 These are applications seeking regular bail filed under Section 439 Cr.PC.

2. The applicants in B.A. Nos.240/2021, 241/2021 and

248/2021 are accused Nos.1 to 4, while the applicant in B.A. Nos. 242/2021, 243/2021, 244/2021, 245/2021,246/2021 and 247/2021 is the 5th accused in the crimes referred to above. The accused are facing accusations for offences punishable under Sections 406 and 420 read with Section 34 IPC and under Section 5 of the Kerala Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Establishments Act , 2013 (Act 7 of 2015), Sections 3 , 21(2)(3) and 5 read with Sections 23 and 25(1) of Banning of Unregulated Deposits Schemes Act , 2019 and Section 45 (s) of the Reserve Bank of India Act , 1934, Sections 17 and 18 of Kerala Money Lenders Act , 1958 and Section 5 of Protection of Interests of Depositors in Financial Institutions Act , 2013 (Act 7 of 2015). 3. The first accused is the Managing Director/Managing Partner of the institutions named M/s.Popular Finance and its sister concerns. The second accused, Prabha Thomas, is his wife, while accused Nos.3 to 5 are their daughters. They are all partners/directors of the institutions conducted by A1 in different names. The allegation against the accused persons is that they had collected money from various persons dishonestly inducing them to deliver the money on account of returning the same with very high interests and accordingly, the money was deposited by the persons in the different institutions belonging to the accused, namely M/s.Popular Finance, M/s.Popular Marine Products, M/s.Marirani Trading LLP etc. Promises were given to the depositors that their amounts would be doubled in seven years. However, the depositors were not given the money and cheated. The accused also committed violation of the various provisions of the Acts stated above.

4. The applicants state that the allegations are not true and that they did not induce the depositors to deposit money with the intention to misappropriate the amounts. But because of the pandemic situation, they were not able to return the money, when all the depositors demanded the return of their money. The money received from the depositors are deposited in the various establishments which are making a profit and the money received could not be left to lie idle and that is why it was deposited in profit-making firms and Companies. Only then would the accused be able to return their money with the promised interests.

5. The applicants were arrested on different dates. There are a number of cases registered against them. In some of the cases, they had already completed the statutory period of 90 days and have been granted statutory bail. In yet other cases, they are yet to complete the statutory period. But they have been granted regular bail by the jurisdictional court.

6. As per the order of this Court, the investigation in all the cases concerning the accused persons were ordered to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Accordingly, the CBI has taken control of the investigation. It is submitted by the learned Standing Counsel appearing for the CBI that the CBI is making an application before the court which directed registration of separate FIRs in each of the complaints received against the accused to consolidate all the complaints together and to file a single FIR against the accused before the CBI Court. While directing the investigation to be conducted by the CBI, this Court had directed the Special Court constituted for trying offences registered by the CBI in the Special Court. However, the FIR is yet to be filed and it is likely that it may be delayed. The learned counsel appearing for the applicants therefore, seeks bail on the premise that the applicants