New Delhi: The Delhi High Court granted bail Thursday to former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh in a money-laundering case. The money-laundering case is related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL). While granting bail, the Delhi High Court said it does not perceive any grave threat to the interests of the society or the public at large with Shivinder Mohan Singh’s release.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani granted the relief to Shivinder on furnishing a personal bond of Rs one crore and two sureties by family members of Rs 25 lakh each.
The judge, who asked Shivinder to surrender his passport, also directed the investigating officer of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to issue a request to the Bureau of Immigration of the Ministry of Home Affairs to forthwith open a ‘Look Out Circular’ in Shivinder’s name to prevent him from leaving the country with trial court’s permission.
The high court imposed various other bail conditions on Shivinder him, including that he shall not tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses, directly or indirectly.
Shivinder was arrested in the money-laundering case by ED and fraud case by EOW, December 12 and October 10 last year respectively. He will remain in jail as he has not been granted bail in the EOW’s case yet.
ED, through advocates Amit Mahajan and Nitesh Rana, had opposed the bail plea. It said that in the present case, money was diverted through a complex web of transactions and finding the trail was not easy. If released on bail, Shivinder could tamper with the evidence.
The high court, in its 45-page judgement, said people’s trust in the criminal justice system must rest on a surer footing than on pre-trial punishment by keeping accused persons in prison.
“Statistics available on the Delhi Prisons website as on December 31, 2019 show that the proportion of undertrials to convicts in Delhi prisons is about 82 percent to 18 per cent. These numbers are telling. Prison is a place for punishment, and no punishment can be legitimate without a trial. There must be a compelling basis, grounds and reasons to detain an undertrial in judicial custody, which this court does not discern in the present case,” the court said.
The court observed there is no 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.
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,” it further said.
Meanwhile, another bench of the high court Thursday denied bail to former CEO of REL Kavi Arora and former CMD of Religare Enterprises Limited (REL) Sunil Godhwani in the fraud case registered by the EOW.
