NITTIN JOHARI Vs. SERIOUS FRAUD INVESTIGATION OFFICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner is seeking regular bail in CC No. 770/2019, titled as Serious Fraud Investigation Office v. Bhushan Steel Limited and Ors. while claiming to be innocent and in custody since 2nd May, 2019.

(2.) Learned senior counsel for petitioner submits that in the complaint under Section 212 of the Companies Act, 2013, it is averred that petitioner, who was the Chief Financial Officer and Director (Finance) of Bhushan Steel Limited (hereinafter referred to as 'BSL'), had connived with the co-accused to inflate the Stock in Transit (SIT) by making false entries in books of accounts maintained by BSL under Standard Accounting Procedure (SAP) and FOXPRO Legacy and with these manipulated figures, petitioner and his co-accused were able to avail Drawing Power (DP) against cash credit facility during the financial years 2013-14 upto 2015-16. It was submitted that it is erroneously stated in the aforesaid complaint (Annexure A-2) that petitioner had also connived with the bank officials to misuse the Letters of Credit (LC) and by using fraudulent and deceptive methods, petitioner and his co-accused were able to generate illegitimate flow of funds to BSL amounting to Rs. 45,818 Crores during the period from 2013-14 upto 2016-17 from the banks concerned.

(3.) Attention of this Court was drawn to paragraph No. 36 of the aforesaid complaint (Annexure A-2) to point out that investigation conducted by respondent-Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) revealed that co-accused Brij Bhushan Singal (A-158) and Neeraj Singal (A-159) were the controlling 'mind and will' of all the accused companies and in paragraph No. 56 of the complaint in question, it has been specifically averred that aforesaid co-accused Brij Bhushan Singal and Neeraj Singal were actually controlling the 'mind and will' of 157 accused companies.