1 sns IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MUMBAI APPELLATE CRIMINAL JURISDICTION ANTICIPATORY BAIL APPLICATION NO.673 OF 2011 Jagdish Premshankar Bansal ...Applicant. v/s The State ...Respondent. Shri A.M.Saraogi, adv. For the applicant. Shri Y.M.Nakhwa, APP for the Respondent/State. WITH ANTICIPATORY BAIL APPLICATION NO.674 OF 2011 1 Divya Dhiraj Dhavan 2 Smita Ratnakar Kambli 3 Vaibhav Padmakar Kambli 4 Prashant Padmakar Kambli ...Applicants. v/s. The State & Anr. ...Respondents. Shri Shirish Gupte i/by Diwakar Dwivedi, advs. For the applicants. Shri Y.M.Nakhwa, APP for the R.No.1/State. Shri Nitin Pradhan i/by Rajesh M. Yamgar & S.K.Hande, advs. For the R.No.2. WITH ANTICIPATORY BAIL APPLICATION NO.686 OF 2011 Ritesh Rampal Agarwal ..Applicant. v/s. The State ..Respondent. Mr. A.M.Saraogi ,adv. For the Applicant. Mr. Y.M.Nakhwa, APP For the Respondent No.1/State. 2 CORAM : J.H. BHATIA,J. DATED : SEPTEMBER 5,2011. P.C. 1 All these applications are moved by different accused persons for anticipatory bail in Crime No.234 of 2011 registered at Dindoshi Police Station for the offences punishable under Section 406, 420 r/w section 34 of the I.P.C. 2 The offence was registered on the report lodged by one Rashmi Mhatre. It appears that the accused no.1 Sunil Joshi, accused no.2 Devang Kakkad, accused no.3 Hemal Gandhi and accused no.4 Dhiraj Dhavan had formed an investment company in the name and style as Verisign Inventures Private Ltd. This company induced people to invest in the company with handsome monthly returns ranging from 5 to 10% and they received huge amounts from different investors in the market. To gain their confidence, initially payments were made and because of the returns being paid for sometime, investors went on investing more money in the said company and then company stopped payments. On the maturity of those investments, the company defaulted and, therefore, 3 Rashmi Mhatre, who claims to have invested total amount of Rs.23,50,000/- in the name of herself, daughter and mother-in-law lodged a report during the investigation. It was revealed that a large number of investors had invested money. According to the prosecution, so far 37 persons come forward with the grievance against the company. The total investments of those persons is around Rupees three crore. The learned counsel for the investors contended that total amount invested in the company may be around 80 crores. Of-course that amount is uncertain. 3 Accused nos.1 to 3, who were the directors of the company have already been arrested. Accused no.4 Dhiraj, who was also one of the directors and who claims to have resigned from the directorship of the company sometimes in October, 2009 has also been arrested. Criminal Anticipatory Bail Application No. 674 of 2011 is filed by Divya, who is wife of the accused no.4 Dhiraj. In that application, applicant no.2 Smita is cousin and the applicant nos.3 and 4 are brothers of the applicant no.1 Divya. According 4 to the prosecution, Padmakar Kambli, father of the applicant Divya as well as the applicant no.3 Vaibhav and applicant no.4 Prashant were working as managers. All these applicants used to induce people to invest money. Padmakar and his two sons Prashant and Vaibhav used to collect funds from different investors. It may be noted that Padmakar Kambli has expired. The learned Senior Counsel for these applicants vehemently contended that none of these applicants was either director or employee of the said company. Except that they are related to the accused no.4 Dhiraj, who was the director of the company, they have no connection with the said company or with the funds received by the said company. However, the learned APP points out from the statements of Dhiraj as well as the bank accounts of the applicant Divya that even though on record, accused no.4 Dhiraj claims to have resigned from the post of director of the company, huge amounts were being transferred from the account of the company to the account of the applicant no.1 Divya. Applicant No.1 Divya claims to be an employee 5 of LIC. As per the entries in the account of the applicant Divya maintained with ICICI Bank, during February, 2011 and March, 2011, she had received several payments from the company and out of that amount, certain payments were made by her to some Builder and according to the prosecution, the amount has been invested in some immovable property in her name. The amount has also been spent on her travelling abroad particularly to Dubai as late as 2011, even though her husband claims to have resigned from the post of director in October, 2009. There are also statements of witnesses to show that she had actually induced people to invest in the said company. 4 Padmakar, father of the applicant no.1, died and it appears that he was one of the managers and had played active role in collection of funds from the people. However, that does not appear to be the case, as far as the other three applicants namely, Smita, Prashant and Vaibhav are concerned. Only statement of one witness indicates that the said witness had been to the house of Padmakar and 6 his sons and niece were present and on equiry about the company by the witness, they had told that company was giving good returns. Besides that, there appears no material against these three persons, at least till this date. 5 Ritesh, who is applicant in Anticipatory Bail Application No.686 of 2011, claims that he was an employee of the company as part-time accountant for a few months and was only getting salary and he has no concern either with the business of the company or with the collection of funds or investments. However, there is sufficient material on record to show that he was actively participating in inducing people to invest money with the company. He was not merely getting salary as part-time accountant but was also getting substantial and handsome share in the profits from the statements. It appears that company had assured 10% per month return on the investments and Ritesh was getting about 4 to 5% of the said returns as his share either from the company directly or from the investors. Huge investments appear to have been 7 made due to inducements by him. 6 Applicant Jagdish in Criminal Anticipatory Bail Application No.673 of 2011 claims that he was only C.A. and had nothing to do with the business of the company or with the investments. Prosecution also could not attribute any role to him either in collection of funds or inducing people to make investments. Merely because he was engaged as Chartered Accountant and he had occasion to look to the accounts of the said company and to advise them in certain aspects, he can not be equated with the other accused persons, who had played active role in the commission of offence. 7 Prima-facie, it appears that company was established with the intention to collect huge funds from the innocent investors by promising handsome monthly returns and after huge amounts were collected, said amounts were syphoned off by the said company and other directors and other persons connected with the same. Taking into consideration the material on record and the role played by the applicants Divya and Ritesh, anticipatory bail can 8 not be granted to them. However, as far as remaining applicants are concerned, for the reasons noted above, in my opinion, custodial interrogation of these persons is not required, atleast at this stage. 8 Criminal Anticipatory Bail Application No.674 of 2011 to the extent of the applicant no.1 Divya Dhiraj Dhavan and Criminal Anticipatory Bail Application No.686 of 2011 Ritesh Rampal Agarwal stand rejected. 9 Applicant no.2 Smita Ratnakar Kambli , Applicant No.3 Vaibhav Padmakar Kambli and Applicant No.4 Prashant Padmakar Kambli in Criminal Anticipatory Bail Application No.674 of 2011 and the applicant Jagdish Premshankar Bansal in Anticipatory Bail Application No.673 of 2011 in the event of arrest in crime no.234 of 2011 shall be released on their executing PR of Rs.15,000/- each with surety in the like amount with the condition that they shall make themselves available before the police as and when required for the purpose of interrogation/investigation and shall fully co- 9 operate with the police. They shall not misuse the bail. 10 Applications stand disposed off. (J.H. BHATIA,J.)