A local court in Haryana has denied bail to Ramesh Sanka, former CEO of Real Estate developer IREO Residences Company Pvt Ltd, in a case of stealing documents and criminal breach of trust.
The orders were passed by the court of Ved Parkash Sirohi, Additional Sessions Judge, Gurugram on Monday.
The court mentioned the Supreme Court verdict of 2022 in case of Sumitha Pradeep vs Arun Kumar C.K. and Anr and held that even if custodial interrogation was not required or necessitated, by itself, cannot be the ground to grant anticipatory bail.
“Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case, I find no ground to admit the petitioner to anticipatory bail and the application for anticipatory bail stands dismissed,” added the ASJ.
Appearing for Sanka, Advocate Vishal Gupta submitted that the petitioner was former CEO of IREO (complainant company).
He made a number of complaints against the complainant company in different Government departments with respect to tax evasions and financial irregularities in the business and financial dealings of the complainant company with many companies, firms and individuals, who were having work place in India and abroad and on his complaint, the statutory auditors held the complainant company guilty of financial irregularities and a recovery of huge amount was made by the different departments of the Government from the complainant
company.
The counsel for the petitioner further argued that the present FIR was the counter blast of the complaints made by the petitioner against the complainant company. Earlier also, a case was registered against the petitioner on the same facts and identical allegations, he added.
The present case has also been registered on the same facts and the petitioner was being made a victim of double jeopardy. He further argued that the complainant company also filed a complaint under section 156 (3) Cr.PC before the Court of learned Judicial Magistrate, Delhi and its prayer for registration of the case was declined.
On the same facts, the Gurugram police registered the present case despite the fact that the complaint on the same facts was pending before the court of Judicial Magistrate, Delhi.
The complainant without disclosing the pendency of the earlier complaint has got the present case registered against the petitioner by way of concealment of facts.
He said no notice under Section 41-A CrPC has been served upon the petitioner and by way of concealment of facts, police in collusion with the complainant company has obtained warrant of arrest against the petitioner in violation of the directions of the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar versus State of Bihar in 2014 and Satender Kumar Antil versus Central Bureau of Investigation and Anr- Misc. Application No. 1849 of 2021 in Special Leave Petition (Crl) No. 5191 of 2021, decided on July 11, 2022.
The Counsel further argued that petitioner has already joined the investigation and submitted documents consisting of 440 pages to the investigating officer. He is assisting the police in the investigation of the case but despite that police is bent upon to arrest the petitioner. Except the offence under section 420 IPC, remaining offences are
of bailable nature. The maximum punishment under section 420 IPC is 7
years. Therefore, in view of the law laid down by the Apex Court in Arnesh Kumar versus State of Bihar, petitioner cannot be arrested when no recovery is to effected from his possession and he is assisting the police in the investigation of the case. Petitioner is not required by the police for custodial interrogation. Thus, he be admitted to anticipatory bail.
To the contrary, the Public Prosecutor for the State assisted by counsel MK Dang for the complainant argued that Ramesh Sanka was CEO of the complainant company and upon his resignation on 28.12.2016, he executed an Employee separation, Confidentiality, Inventions, Non-Competition and Non-Disparagement agreement dated 28.12.2016 with Ireo. But in violation of the said agreement, he has misused the client data of the complainant company and instigated home-buyers/ clients of the complainant company to file complaints/ litigations against the complainant company.
Sanka is a partner in Ghar Samadhan LLP which has managed the number of complaints from home-buyers/ clients against the complainant company and demanded Rs 10 crore from the complainant company to withdraw the said complaints. Therefore, Ramesh Sanka is required by the police for custodial interrogation and the application for anticipatory bail deserves to be dismissed.