A Mumbai sessions court on Wednesday, 16 February, granted bail to former CEO and MD of YES Bank, Rana Kapoor, in the money laundering scam and in connection to the loss of over Rs 300 crore.
A special Mumbai court granted Kapoor bail on some standard conditions under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Kapoor cannot leave the country and his passport will be seized by the court. The former YES Bank chairman will have to attend the court on the dates when the matter is scheduled for and whenever else required.
In addition, he is required to hand in a provisional surety of Rs 5 lakh.
The court also granted bail to businessman Gautam Thapar along with seven others, who were arrested in connection with the sale of a property in Delhi.
However, Kapoor and Thapar will not be released yet since they remain in judicial custody pertaining to certain other cases.
The present case revolves around the allegations of acquiring a property at a prime Delhi location at half the market price. Situated on Amrita Shergill Marg, the sale was made to a company owned by Bindu Kapoor, the former MD's wife, for which a separate First Information Report (FIR) was lodged in 2021 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Mumbai.
Later, Avantha Group founder Gautam Thapar was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in August 2021 in connection with the money laundering case. Seven others were also arrested based on the FIR.
Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, presenting Rana Kapoor's case, argued that his client was not arrested by the ED in the present property related case.
Since the probe agency has lodged the Prosecution Complaint without arresting Kapoor, he is entitled to be released on bail, Aggarwal further said.
Aggarwal also kept forward his argument about the fact that ED opposing bail without the arrest of the accused tantamounts to firing from the judge's shoulder.
The crisis that Yes Bank went through in 2020 brought to the fore the flaws of the banking system in India, the shortcomings of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and most importantly, the lack of preparedness of the system to tackle with such crisis.
The Kapoors, including Rana Kapoor, his wife, and their three daughters, allegedly got huge amounts in kickbacks through the companies owned by them for sanctioning massive loans to some corporate entities which had later turned non-performing assets.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)