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IL&FS: Bombay HC grants bail to former IL&FS’s vice chairman Hari Sankaran

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The Bombay High Court on Thursday granted bail to former Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) vice-chairman Hari Sankaran.

Justice Prithviraj K Chavan, while granting bail ruled that Sankaran shall attend the trial court ‘scrupulously unless exempted’ and has also directed him to surrender his passport before the trial court within a week from the date of passing of this order.

“The applicant (Sankaran) shall not tamper with the evidence or attempt to influence or contact any of the witnesses or persons concerned with this case,” said the court in its order. “In case of breach of any of the aforesaid conditions, the prosecution shall be at liberty to seek cancellation of bail,” it further added.

However, soon after the court granted bail, counsel appearing for the Special Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) sought a stay to the order for one week so that the investigation agency could approach the Supreme Court to challenge this order.

While countering this, Senior Counsel Aabad Ponda appeared for the Sankaran and argued that the applicant had been incarcerated for nearly five years and hence it would be unjustifiable to stay the order.

Before the bail was granted, Special Public Prosecutor HS Venegavkar, appearing for the SFIO had objected to the granting of bail and urged to reject the application by contending that the accused has no exclusive right to seek his release on bail. In 2018, IL&FS accumulated a debt of over Rs. 91,000 crore and defaulted on some of its commitments. Subsequently, the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal allowed the replacement of the earlier board of IL&FS with a new one led by Uday Kotak, MD of Kotak Mahindra Bank. Also, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and several investigation agencies had also initiated a probe into the financials of the group.

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