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Bail Is Granted to Shivinder Singh In Religare Finvest Money Laundering Case: Delhi High Court
On Thursday, former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh granted regular bail by Delhi High Court in a money laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL).
A single-judge Bench of Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, who had reserved its order on the bail plea on July 16 after hearing arguments from the counsel of petitioner and pronounced the order through video conferencing, granted the relief to Shivinder in furnishing of a personal bond of Rs 1 crore and two sureties by family members of Rs 25 lakh each.
Shivinder Singh has been directed to not contact or engage with any of the officials of the financial institutions or banks that are involved in the case.
To prevent any unannounced exit from the country, the investigating officer of the ED is directed by the judge to request the Bureau of Immigration to initiate the proceedings for opening a Look-Out Circular(LOC) in Shivinder's name.
Other than that, there are other conditions which are imposed on Shivinder Singh includes, not leaving the country without the permission of the court, not leaving his ordinary place of residence, surrendering his passport, not tampering with evidence etc.
Shivinder, along with his brother Malvinder Singh, has been in jail since October last year after he was arrested out of an FIR registered by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police on a complaint by Religare Finvest Ltd. (RFL) for allegedly diverting money from Religare Finvest Ltd. and its parent Religare Enterprises Ltd. via loans to private companies owned by them.
Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Shivinder Singh on December 12, 2019, and was remanded to 14 days custody. Thereafter, he was sent to judicial custody.
Shivinder Singh's counsel Seeking his release argued that since the ED has filed its prosecution complaint/charge sheet in the case, no objective would be accomplished by the proceeded with imprisonment of his client.
It was submitted that Shivinder satisfied the triple test for the grant of bail as given the documentary nature of evidence and absence of allegations of evidence tampering.
The ED by opposing the bail argued that finding the trail was not as the money was diverted through a complex web of transactions and as this case is an ongoing investigation, releasing Shivinder on bail might interfere with the process.
It was further informed to the court, the investigation was complete qua only Rs 450 crore out of over Rs 2,000 crore of allegedly laundered money.
It was held by the court that it could not "warp the entire concept of pre-trial imprisonment and bail" by refusing to uphold the contention of ED that on account of the on-going investigation bail should not be granted to Shivinder.
"Nowhere is it the law that an accused, yet to be tried, is to be kept in custody only on a hunch or a presumption that he will prejudice or impede trial; or to send any message to the society. If anything, the only message that goes-out to the society by keeping an accused in prison before finding him guilty, is that our system works only on impressions and conjectures and can keep an accused in custody even on presumption of guilt. While in certain cases such message may even quench the thirst for revenge of the lay society against a person they believe to be guilty, such action would certainly not leave our criminal justice system awash in glory," Delhi High Court.
In the Delhi Police case, Shivinder Singh is yet to get bail.
Senior Advocate N Hariharan with Advocates Tanveer Ahmed, Mahesh Aggarwal, Shri Singh, Abhishek Singh, Nirvikar Singh, Shally Bhasin, Maneka Khanna appeared for Shivinder.
Standing Counsel Amit Mahajan with SPP Nitesh Rana and Advocate Mallika Hiremath appeared for ED.
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