A Mumbai Court granted bail to YES Bank founder Rana Kapoor earlier this month in a Rs 200 crore money laundering case after noting that trial against him was yet to begin even after over 2 years and 2 months.
"This long period of undue incarceration of 2 years, 2 months and 3 days was ignored making capital of alleged gravity, magnitude and seriousness of the offence. There is no likelihood in future that trial will begin and conclude as early as possible,” the Court said while granting bail.
Kapoor, however, will continue to remain imprisoned since he is still in judicial custody in three other cases.
"ED simply opposes bail applications heavily, but never takes any active step in proceeding with trials, particularly as per the mandate of Sec.44(1)(c) of the PML Act and accused is an undertrial prisoner. Like this, in many other cases the Court is repeatedly directing ED to follow the true spirit and mandate of Sec.44(1)(c) of the PML Act," the judge added.
The case: Wadhawan directors operationally controlled Mack Star and its bank accounts and availed six loans worth Rs 200 crores from Yes Bank between 2011 to 2016 without reportedly telling the investors.
This amount was then circulated within the bank with HDIL and Mack Star accounts to discharge liability owed by HDIL to Yes Bank, according to Bar and Bench.
The case against Kapoor started with the CBI registering an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Based on this, the ED registered a case in October 2020.
Kapoor was then arrested on 27 January 2021, while he was already in custody in another case.
(With inputs from Bar and Bench)
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