Delhi High Court Grants Bail To Former Religare CFO Krishnan Subramanian In RFL Scam Case

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted bail to Krishnan Subramanian, former CFO of Religare Enterprises Limited, in connection with the Fortis Religare Scam case involving the alleged financial scam of disbursal of loans worth thousands of crores to shell entities having no financial strength.

Justice Chandra Dhari Singh granted bail to Subramanian subject to Subramanian furnishing a personal bond in the sum of Rs. 1 Lac with two sureties each of the like amount.

The FIR was registered under sec. 409, 420, and 120B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, by M/s. Religare Finvest Limited against Malvinder Mohan Singh, Shivinder Mohan Singh, the then Promoters or Directors, Sunil Godhwani, the then Chairman-cum-Managing Director, and N.K. Ghoshal.

It was alleged that the said persons having absolute control over REL, and its subsidiaries had put RFL in poor financial condition by disbursing loans to entities, having no financial standings.

It was added that the said entities willfully defaulted in repayments and caused wrongful loss to RFL. The Reserve Bank of India had pointed out some discrepancies in its analysis regarding the top borrowers of RFL under the Corporate Loan Book (CLB) portfolio were related entities; there was interlinkage between the borrowers as funds were routed from one borrower to another, and the loan amounts ultimately were coming to the group companies of RFL.

Advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir appearing on behalf of the applicant submitted that as per the allegations made in the complaint and charge sheet, the promoter-directors were involved in round-tripping of some loans right from the year 2008 onwards and it was a matter of admitted position that the aforesaid round-tripping predominantly took place between the period from 2008 to 2016, during which period the applicant was neither a part of REL nor a part of RFL.

It was further submitted that RFL was a 100% subsidiary of REL and therefore, a common balance sheet was being filed.

Mir further argued that Subramanian throughout his limited tenure as Group CFO of RFL worked strictly under the guidance and directions of the Board of Directors and that he had at no point of time held a key role so far as management of affairs of REL or RFL was concerned.

The Court noted that it was an admitted case that co-accused Maninder Singh was enlarged on bail by a Coordinate Bench of High Court vide order dated 5th May 2021.

"A perusal of record shows that chargesheet has already been filed, all materials have been collected by the investigating authorities and the evidence against the applicant is documentary in nature. In the considered opinion of this Court, the applicant is neither a flight risk, nor can there be any propensity on his part to tamper with any evidence or influence any witness inasmuch as the entire domain of evidence is documentary in nature, which exists as it is from the year 2008 onwards, unhindered, and untampered," it added.

Noting that Subramanian was languishing in jail since 8th December 2021, the Court said that bail be granted considering the first and second supplementary charge sheet as well as the fact that other co-accused persons had been enlarged on bail.

Accordingly, the plea was allowed.

Advocates Tanveer Ahmed Mir, Prabhav Ralli, Saud Khan, and Kartik Venu appeared for the applicant.

Title: KRISHNAN SUBRAMANIAN v. STATE OF NCT OF DELHI

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Del) 431

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