THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision: 10.03.2025 Satinder Walia ...Petitioner Versus Serious Fraud Investigation Office ....Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MAHABIR SINGH SINDHU Present: Mr. Viren Jain, Advocate, Mr. Pramod Kumar, Advocate, Mr. Rajshekhar, Advocate and Ms. Komaljit Kaur, Advocate, for the petitioner.

Ms. Puneeta Sethi, Senior Panel Counsel with Mr. Y.S. Thakur, Advocate, for the respondent.

MAHABIR SINGH SINDHU, J.

Present petition has been filed under Section 482 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (for short “BNSS”)/Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short “Cr.P.C”) for seeking pre-arrest bail in Complaint No. COMA/17/2021 titled As "Serious Fraud Investigation Office (For short “SFIO”) Vs. SRS LTD. and others, under Section 439, Section 436(1)(a) and (d) read with proviso to Section 212(14) of the Companies Act, 2013 (for short “the Act of 2013”) read with Section 621 (1) of the Companies Act, 1956 (for short “the Act of 1956”) and Section 193 of Cr.P.C.

2. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India, ordered SFIO to investigate into the affairs of 88 companies of SRS Group vide order dated 01.08.2018. In pursuance thereof, investigating officer(s) were appointed by the Director, SFIO. The investigation was carried out in the matter and the report was submitted to Central Government on 05.06.2021 in terms of Section

212(12) of the Act of 2013.

2.1 Thereafter, complaint was filed before learned Special Court, Gurugram against 81 accused, including petitioner on 11.06.2021 and ultimately, all were summoned to face trial under various provisions of the Act of 2013 vide order dated 16.08.2021 (P-3).

2.2 During pendency of complaint, initially, petitioner was granted interim pre-arrest bail by learned Special Court, vide order dated 30.09.2022; however, later on, the same was dismissed on 24.12.2024; hence the present petition.

3. Allegations, as gathered from the complaint and investigation report dated 05.06.2021, are extracted here as under:-

“(I) SRS Group consisted of two categories of companies with the nomenclature 'SRS companies' and 'Non-SRS companies'. It is revealed that the affairs of these companies were managed and controlled by Anil Jindal, Jitender Kumar Garg, Praveen Kumar Kapoor, Bishan Bansal, Nanak Chand Tayal, Rajesh Singla and Sushil Singla. The said persons were the actual controlling "mind and will" and in control of the affairs of the SRS Group. The degree of their control was such that the directors in these companies were appointed or removed as per their whims and fancies.

II) That in case of Non-SRS companies, it is revealed that the directors were mostly the employees, known persons, or relatives of the controllers of the SRS Group. However, the total control over the operations of these companies was in the hands of the controllers of the SRS Group.

(III) It is revealed that five companies belonging to SRS Group i.e., SRS Limited, SRS Modern Sales Limited, SRS Healthcare & Research Centre Limited, SRS Finance Limited & SRS Real Estate Limited obtained loans to the tune of Rs. 528 crores (after

12.09.2013) from public sector banks/financial institutions. The outstanding bank loans with respect to nine of the SRS Group of companies, as per the latest financial statements filed with MCA, are Rs. 1596.94 Crores.

(IV) It is further revealed that the directors of SRS Ltd. and its four other Group Companies had presented falsified financial statements (after 12.09.2013) containing falsified statements of debtors, inflated Purchase & Sales figures, deliberately concealed the material facts in obtaining aforesaid credit facilities from public sector banks/financial institutions. In this regard, non-SRS companies were used for the purpose of inflating the sale, purchase, and profit of the SRS Companies, adjusting cash sales of jewellery and building material of declared SRS Companies, showing these Non-SRS companies as debtors