The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said that it will pronounce order on April 7 on the anticipatory bail plea by SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh in a case of an alleged fraud related to the transfer of shares of the airline to certain individuals.
Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta reserved order on the pre-arrest bail application after hearing the counsel appearing for Singh, the complainant as well as Delhi Police, and said it has to be seen “whether criminal intent is made out or not”. “We reserve the order for tomorrow,” said the judge.
The trial court had rejected Singh’s anticipatory bail application last month, stating that it did not find sufficient grounds to grant relief to him in view of the overall facts and circumstances of the case and the gravity of offence.
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for Singh, argued before the high court that there was no need for the SpiceJet promoter’s custodial interrogation and he was not going to abscond and he was cooperating with the investigation.
He stated that Singh even returned the sum of Rs 10 lakh which was given to him by the complainant for the transfer of shares after the same could not materialise on account of a separate pending dispute before an arbitral tribunal and that he was willing to “secure and set aside separately” the number of shares in question in the investigation. “We will keep 10 lakh shares and not alienate them or create third party rights,” Luthra said.
Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, appearing for the complainant, opposed the anticipatory bail plea and also raised objections with respect to the manner in which the bail application was filed. He said the present case was “serious” and Singh “absconded” the same day when his anticipatory bail was rejected by the trial court.
Luthra said that Singh had left the country on account of some work and he intended to come back. Senior advocate Mohit Mathur, also appearing for the complainant in the matter, argued that Singh made promises which he never intended to fulfill.
The Delhi Police lawyer also opposed grant of relief to Singh and said there were other criminal cases pending against him and a non-bailable warrant was also issued against him in the present case. In the present case, which pertains to two similar FIRs, a Delhi businessman and his family members alleged that there was a share-purchase agreement between him and the accused and he paid Rs 10 lakh for 10 lakh shares of SpiceJet.
These shares, however, were not transferred leading to the filing of the police complaint against Singh. The complainant has also claimed that the accused deliberately and dishonestly handed over outdated and invalid DIS (delivery instruction slip) to him.
In his bail plea before the high court, Singh has submitted that ex-facie no offence is made out against him and the criminal case is an abuse of the criminal machinery.
“The FIR has been registered for the offence of cheating in a case which is entirely based on a civil and commercial dispute arising out of a share purchase agreement dated 09.07.2018, to which the complainant/informant and the petitioner herein are parties,” the plea said.
Singh had moved the trial court seeking protection from arrest in the case after non-bailable warrants were issued against him in January for failing to appear before the police for investigation. Last month, the trial court had protected him from coercive action till the pendency of the present application while directing him to cooperate and participate in the investigation.
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