Monday development in the Supreme Court on the issue of the grant of bail to Modis of Adarsh Credit Co-op fame may not be a good news for the alleged scamsters. The apex court has raised the issue of validity of Delhi High Court jurisdiction in deciding on a case that has been filed in Haryana.
The Supreme Court raised two points. First, it asked Rahul Modi, the younger of the two who would mostly attend co-op events in Delhi and abroad– whether the Delhi High Court was competent to grant bail in a case in which the prosecution has been initiated in Haryana?
The second point raised by the apex court was how a habeas corpus petition could be filed when Modis are on remand by a judicial order. Such petitions, experts say are usually filed when a person is in police custody beyond a reasonable limit of time. As Modis were in judicial remand, the petition of habeas corpus is not valid in the matter, they added.
It bears recall that Modis- Mukesh and Rahul were arrested on December 10 by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and were granted bail by the Delhi High Court on December 20.
A bench of justices A M Sapre and U U Lalit asked Modi to satisfy it whether the Delhi High Court was correct in granting him bail even when a bail application was not filed”, PTI reports.
The report also quotes Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who while appearing for the SFIO, argued “it was a serious financial fraud case and the high court had set aside the order of a Gurugram special court. The order was not under challenge and the high court does not have the territorial jurisdiction to do so”.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Modis, said that arrest was made in Delhi and the SFIO’s headquarters is in the national capital. Therefore, the Delhi High Court has the territorial jurisdiction to entertain the petition, he claimed. The next hearing in the case is slated for January 23rd.
Meanwhile, soon after getting bails, the duo and their team began to shoot legal notices to silence the helpless depositors who took to social media demanding their deposits. The story was extensively reported in these columns.
It bears recall that Modis are accused of duping more than 20 lakh depositors in the name of cooperative. The arrested founder chairman of Adarsh Credit Mukesh and his family members are alleged to have been running Ponzi schemes and had floated several fake companies to which they diverted Rs 8400 crore.