Delhi court rejects Awanish Kumar’s bail plea in case of embezzlement of Rs 354 crores

A Delhi court has dismissed the bail plea of Director of Allied Financial Services Pvt Ltd (AFSPL) Awanish Kumar Mishra, who was arrested by Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW). Awanish Kumar Mishra was arrested for the alleged embezzlement of funds to the tune of Rs 345 crore. According to the EoW, Dalmia Cements Limited filed a complaint against Mishra regarding allegations of misappropriation of funds, after which the Delhi Police arrested him.

The case was heard by the Additional Sessions Judge of Karkardooma Court complex Reetesh Singh. Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, appearing for complainant Dalmia Cements raised the preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the bail application of the accused Awanish Kumar Mishra as he was not “in custody”, though as per the mandate of law, the accused was required to be in custody before moving an application for regular bail.

"As the Counsel for the complainant has submitted that he has filed an application for cancellation of bail against accused Awanish Kumar Mishra which is pending in another Court, it will not be appropriate for this Court to make any comment about the existence or absence of any order of interim bail on the basis of which the accused Awanish Kumar Mishra is not in jail. As far as the present bail application is concerned, for the reasons recorded above, the same has no merit and is dismissed," the Court observed.

The complaint states the accused has fraudulently transferred the credentials of the complainant in the account opening form and fed wrong credentials on the NSDL server to deprive the complainant of getting an alert message for each transaction and that the accused Awanish Kumar Mishra further fraudulently transferred the mutual fund units of the complainant worth Rs.344.07 crores by using delivery instruction slips bearing forged signatures of authorized signatories of the complainant companies.

The complaint further stated mutual fund units were further pledged to IL&FS Securities Services Ltd (ISSL) for getting margin in derivative trading segments and ISSL and its officials namely V. Hansprakash ( co-accused in the case) had mala-fide facilitated the accused Awanish Kumar Mishra and AFSPL in using the said fraudulently transferred mutual fund units for margin.

Aggarwal argued before the Court that the accused was involved in a grave economic offence involving huge conspiracy, affecting the moral fabric of the society and persons alleged to have committed such offences are necessarily required to be treated differently in the matter of bail.