DHFL case: SC dismisses ED appeal, says grant of default bail duration to include remand period

Dismissing an appeal of the Enforcement Directorate the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the 6090day duration for the grant of default bail in a criminal case will include the remand periodA bench of Justices KM Joseph Hrishikesh Roy and BV Nagarathna dismissed the appeal filed by the ED challenging the Bombay High Court order granting bail to former DHFL promoters Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan in a Yes Bank money laundering case being probed by the agencyThe remand period will be calculated from the date magistrate remand the accused An accused becomes entitled to default bail if the charge sheet is not filed by 61st or 91st day of the remand period the bench saidThe threejudge bench answered the larger issue referred to it by a twojudge bench in 2021 It directed the pending petitions pertaining to the case be placed before a twojudge benchThe top court had on February 9 reserved its verdict on the appeal of EDOn February 23 2021 the top court had referred to larger bench the legal question that whether the day on which an accused is remanded to custody should be included while calculating the 60day period for the grant of default bailThe legal issue had arisen during the hearing of an EDs appeal against a Bombay High Court order granting bail to the former promoters of the Dewan Housing Finance Limited DHFLIn September 2020 the top court had stayed a Bombay High Court order granting bail to the promotersThe top court had issued a notice to the accused on the EDs plea against the High Court order of bailThe Bombay High Court had on August 20 2020 granted bail to the Wadhawan brothers stating that mandatory default bail is the sequel to nonfiling of charge sheetThe HC had granted them bail as it held that the ED failed to file its charge sheet in the case within the stipulated 60day periodThe central probe agency had then filed a special leave petition before the apex courtThe federal probe agency had said that it was not in violation of the procedure and had filed a part of the charge sheet through email a day before the 60day period endedThe charge sheet was filed in physical form by the ED on July 13 2020Also Read Every member of banned outfit an offender under UAPA SCAs per Section 1672 of the Code of Criminal Procedure an accused can be detained for a maximum of 90 days for a crime punishable with death life imprisonment or a sentence of over 10 years If the investigation relates to any other offence the accused can be detained for 60 daysIf the investigative agencies do not complete their investigation within these time limits the arrested person is entitled to default bailThe Wadhawans however were not released on bail as they are in CBI custody at presentThey were arrested by the ED on May 14 2020 under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLAThe ED had slapped PMLA charges against the two and in this case after studying a CBI FIR filed in March in connection with alleged suspicious loans granted by Yes Bank and the iquestquid pro quoiquest between its copromoter Rana Kapoor and the WadhawansAccording to the CBI and ED Yes Bank invested around Rs 3700 crore in short term nonconvertible debentures of DHFL between April and June 2018This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever