He Falls Under Category Of ‘Sick’ Person: Delhi HC Grants Bail To DHFL Promoter Dheeraj Wadhawan In Loan Scam Case

The Delhi High Court has granted bail to Dheeraj Wadhawan, promoter of M/s Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) in loan scam case.

The Court was dealing with a bail application filed by Wadhawan under Section 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) read with Section 482 of the Code for grant of bail on medical grounds.

A Single Bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain observed, “The applicant is suffering from various ailments as detailed herein above and is falling under category of sick person. The applicant at present may not require hospitalisation and can be treated as outdoor patient but the applicant needs regular and periodical medical attention and treatment under direct supervision of expert and specialist doctors. If the ailments of the applicant are not properly addressed then these ailments may prove to be life threatening.”

The Bench said that the accused is required to be treated by the suitable doctors, may be at private hospitals and hence, he is entitled for grant of bail as per proviso to Section 437(1) of CrPC.

Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa appeared on behalf of the applicant/accused while SPP Anupam Sharma appeared on behalf of the respondent/Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Facts of the Case -

An FIR was registered by the respondent/CBI against the applicant/accused for the commission of offences punishable under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) read with Sections 409, 420, and 477A of IPC and under Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (PC Act). It was alleged that the accused and others entered into a criminal conspiracy to cheat consortium of 17 banks led by the Union Bank of India by inducing consortium banks to sanction huge loans aggregating to Rs. 57,242/- crores approx. siphoning off and misappropriating significant portion of the said funds by falsifying the books of account of M/s DHFL.

The accused allegedly defaulted on repayment of the legitimate dues of the said consortium banks and caused a wrongful loss of Rs. 34,926/- crores to the consortium lenders from 2010-2019. Resultantly, the accused was arrested in July 2022. Therefore, he sought bail before the High Court. He claimed to be suffering from multiple comorbidities and chronic ailments including ischemic heart disease, chronic kidney disease, fluctuating serum creatinine levels, hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, obesity, etc.

The High Court in view of the facts and circumstances of the case remarked, “This court is conscious of the fact that there are very serious allegations against the applicant and other co-accused involving misappropriation and cheating of about Rs. 40,000 crores and the applicant is involved in number of cases. This court is dealing with consideration of bail to the applicant on medical ground as per proviso to section 437 (1) of the Code and not on merits of the case.”

The Court noted that, past and previous conduct of the accused does not have much relevance in context of the bail application filed on medical ground and that the accused is stated not to be in custody in any other case except the present case.

“It is appearing that the applicant is in judicial custody for more than 15 months and is suffering from various ailments as detailed and discussed herein above. The trial is not expected to be concluded within reasonable time or near future as there are more than 100 accused named in charge sheet and the prosecution has cited more than 600 witnesses. In these circumstances, bail on medical ground can be considered and granted in view of various ailments suffered by the applicant”, it added.

Accordingly, the High Court granted bail to the accused on furnishing a personal bond of Rs. 10 lakhs with one surety of like amount to the satisfaction of the Trial Court.

Cause Title- Dheeraj Wadhawan v. CBI (Neutral Citation: 2024:DHC:6941)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa, Advocates Avishkar Singhvi, Ashish Verma, Vijay Kari Singh, Debopriyo Moulik, Rohan Dakshini, Prakhar Parekh, Janaki Garde, Vishwajit Singh, Tejas Popat, Raghav Dharmadhikari, Garvil Singh, Sanskriti Shakuntala Gupta, and Vivek Kumar Singh.

Respondent: SPP Anupam Sharma, Advocates Prakarsh Airan, Harpreet Kalsi, Abhishek Batra, Ripudaman Sharma, Vashisht Rao, and Syamantak Modgill.

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