Punjab & Haryana HC Grants Bail To Persons Accused Of Taking ₹8 Crore To Bribe SC's Lodha Committee, SEBI Officials For Transferring Property At Cheap Rates

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has granted bail to persons accused of taking Rs. 8 Crore to bribe Supreme Court's Lodha Committee and SEBI officials for getting necessary clearance for the property to be transferred at a cheap rate.

While granting bail to two of the accused persons, Justice Deepak Gupta noted, "As rightly pointed out by learned Senior Counsel that in the entire FIR, there is no reference of any property details, which were allegedly shown to the complainant party and which was subject-matter of any alleged deal. No agreement to sell has been produced to show any deal struck between the complainant and the accused party."

No date or specific place is mentioned, where the huge amount of ₹8 crore is stated to have been paid in ten instalments, the Court noted further.

Justice Gupta was hearing bail applications of accused persons  Dilip @ Dileep Kumar Tripathi, Syed Pervez Rahman and anticipatory bail plea of Humra Rehman booked under for committing fraud under Sections 420, 120-B, 467, 468, 471 and 506 IPC.

Facts In Brief

A complaint was filed by Gurpreet Singh alleging that accused persons Dilip and Syed Pervez Rahman, while showing identity cards of the PMO, agreed to a sale agreement concerning some land purportedly belonging to the Pearl Company in Bathinda, for an amount of ₹15 crore.

It was alleged that Singh was informed that in order to register the sale deed, he would need to pay at least ₹8 crores, which was to be paid to the Lodha Committee of the Supreme Court and senior-ranking officers of SEBI for clearance.

According to state, accused Syed Pervez Rahman was arrested in September, 2023. At the time of his arrest, documents shown by the accused to the complainant at different time of intervals, issued by SEBI, letter issued to Justice (Retd) R.M. Lodha Committee regarding getting clearance of the property and various sale deeds were recovered, which were taken into possession by the IO, vide seizure memo.

After hearing the submissions, the Court noted that the complainant failed to produce any records showing transactions of Rs. 8 crore that were allegedly paid to the accused persons. 

"However, despite grant of adequate opportunities, no such documents have been placed on record. On 25.04.2024, learned counsel for the complainant made a statement that no such documents could be traced," the Court said.

Further, neither any receipt to show payment of any amount to the accused party is pleaded or produced on record; nor any source of the huge amount of ₹8 crore is disclosed, it added.

Justice Gupta opined that all these allegations as made in the FIR are, in the facts and circumstances, subject-matter of trial.

Court stated that the prosecution case was based on the allegations made in the complaint and the recovery of certain forged documents, which are stated to have been recovered from the petitioner-accused – Syed Pervez Rahman.

Moreover, the judge said that, "Dilip @ Dileep Kumar Tripathi has already joined the investigation. As far as petitioner – Humra Rehman is concerned, the only role attributed to her is that she was projected by the accused party as a High Rank officer of SEBI to the complainant party."

In the light of the above the court granted bail to Dilip and anticipatory bail to Humra Rahman.

Pertaining to petition filed by Syed Pervez, the Court said, that he was in custody for the more than seven months, and all the offences in question were triable by the Magistrate.

Investigation qua him is already complete. Trial is likely to take a long time to conclude. No purpose shall be served by keeping him detained." Consequently, he was also granted the relief, the Court stated.

Title: Dilip @ Dileep Kumar Tripathi v. State of Punjab along with other petitions.

Varun Chhibba, Advocate with Amandeep Singh Sidhu, Advocate for the petitioner in CRM-M-50449 of 2023. ( for Dilip @ Dileep Kumar Tripathi)

Bipan Ghai, Senior Advocate with Nikhil Ghai and Prabhdeep S. Bindra, Advocates for the petitioner in CRM-M-138-2024 & CRM-M-61945 of 2023. (for Syed Pervez Rahman and Humra Rehman)

Sahil R. Bakshi, AAG, Punjab.

R.S. Randhawa, Advocate with Tarranum Madaan, Advocate for the complainant.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (PH) 138

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