Brijesh Singla vs State of Haryana

K.K. Srivastava, J.

The petitioners Brijesh Singla, Lokesh Singla and Bupesh Singla sons of Veer Bhan, proprietors M/s Pappal Udyog, M/s SVB Woollen Mills and M/s Sham Associates, Panipat, respectively, seek anticipatory bail in case FIR No. 257 dated 28.5.1998 registered under Sections 420/409/467/468/471/120B of the Indian Penal Code Police Station Chandani Bagh, Panipat (State of Haryana). The petitioners alleged that they are the sole proprietors of their respective business concerns mentioned above and are third in generation of businessmen dealing in wool and are big importers of wool. For importing this wool they are dealing with Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd.

Accordingly to the averments made in the F.I.R. the petitioners in connivance with Sh. Sunil Kumar Gupta, Manager of the said Bank managed to get the Letters of Credit for importing wool without any adequate or appropriate security and thus committed fraud and cheating with the Bank which had to make the payments of the imported goods. A complaint in this case was filed by Shri K.L. Kaul, Area Manager, Jammu & Kashmir Bank Limited, Jalandhar City. Sunil Kumar Gupta, Manager of Foreign Exchange Branch of the said Bank prepared some forged Letters of Credit (LOC), in alleged collusion with the petitioners and thereby embezzled an amount of Rs. 124.93 lacs and caused a loss of that amount to Jammu & Kashmir Bank. It was alleged that some other documents were also forged for committing embezzlement of the amount in question. According to the averments made in the complaint only vouchers were passed and entries were made in the debit. However, no entry was available in the Bank. Some of the documents which were alleged to be in possession of the said Manager Sh. Sunil Kumar Gupta and some of the documents were in possession of the present petitioners/accused. The details of some of the transactions were mentioned in the F.I.R.

The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that the dispute is of a civil nature; a loan was granted to the petitioners in due course of process by the competent officers of the Bank; the applicants accused are in no way in collusion with the Manager of the Bank; the credits were sanctioned by the Senior Manager, Deputy General Manager, General Manager and the Managing Directors and not by the Incharge/Manager of the Foreign Exchange Branch. It was further contended that the petitioners have joined the investigation of the case and are still ready to join the investigation. The learned counsel for he petitioners further contended that the petitioners have given the details of their accounts and shown that their limits of credit was not exceeded. Regarding Pappal Udhyog, it was mentioned that the outstanding amount of Rs. 23.15 lacs whereas the F.L.C. limit was Rs. 25 lacs, which was well within the limit sanctioned by the Bank. Regarding S.V.B. Woollen Mills the outstanding balance shown towards the Bank is Rs. 16,67,058 whereas regarding F.L.C. was Rs. 20 lacs and thus the amount was within the limit sanctioned by the Bank. Regarding the third business concern i.e. Sham Associates, the credit balance was Rs. 23.27 lacs. The F.L.C. limit was however not mentioned. It was contended that the three accounts which had been operated by the petitions as per the details available with them for credit balance was within the limits sanctioned by the Bank. It has also been contended that for taking these limits the petitioners 1 and 2 have given collateral security of property worth Rs. 1.20 crores. Regarding the letter of Credit it was urged that it was a counteract between party A, the importer based in India and party B, the exporter based abroad. The Bank is the guarantor for this amount. Alongwith foreign financial institution, the documents of the import are given by the foreign financial institution to the Bank and the Bank gives these amounts to their party. On receipt of those documents through the Bank, the import consignment is got released after paying the custom duty. It is alleged that at each stage information is sent to the Reserve Bank of India by the Indian Bank i.e. J & K Bank in this case, the custom authority. The payment in foreign currency is released by the Reserve Bank of India on the receipt of documents and paid to the foreign financial institution. It is urged that the Jammu & Kashmir Bank gave the documents after duly entering the same in the leger and accounts. Thus, the petitioners could not have concealed anything. The Bank has numerous safeguarding measures, which have stood the test of time. These measures include a double accounting system, reports to be submitted to the Head Office daily, weekly, monthly, half yearly and annually, which are also audited and any discrepancies could be detected immediately. The transactions mentioned in the F.I.R. are genuine transactions covering one year prior to May, 1998, the date of the alleged F.I.R. During this time the Bank had two half yearly closings, one annual closing and 11 monthly closings besides almost 52 weekly closings and over 300 daily closings. The reports have been sent to the head office and audited and the Head office in turn sent these reports to the Reserve Bank of India and the Central Government. It is alleged that no discrepancy has been found by any of the authorities. It was contended that it is impossible for the Bank to have been able to balance its accounts in these closing if there was even a single transaction missing. It was further contended that even otherwise the Bank has been paid for the four transactions amounting to Rs. 40.22 Lacs mentioned in the F.I.R.

The learned counsel for the respondent No. 2 Jammu and Kashmir Bank Shri R.S. Ghai, learned Senior Advocate, has contended that in this case not a single document is available with the Bank where the forgery was committed by Shri Sunil Kumar Gupta, Manger who acted in connivance with the petitioners and thereby causing loss to the Bank, for a sum of Rs. 1.24 crore. The investigation of the case is still in progress and custodial investigation would lead to more details and the various documents are to be recovered and examined.

After carefully considering the rival contentions of the parties and considering gravity of the offence, the amount which is alleged to have been embezzled being quite large and further considering that the custodial investigation of the case will be seriously hampered in case the petitioners are granted anticipatory bail, the petitioners do not deserve to be given the concession of anticipatory bail. Consequently, the petition lacks merit and is dismissed.