Mumbai: A special court in the city remanded Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan to CBI custody in the Yes Bank multi-crore scam after CBI arrested them on Sunday from Mahabaleshwar and produced them before the court on Monday.
While the CBI sought their custody till May 4, for seven days, it could secure only two days till April 29. Immediately thereafter, the duo filed bail pleas which were argued by their advocate. The court disposed off the pleas stating that they could not be considered at this stage when they are in police custody.
The agency arrested the duo from Mahabaleshwar on Sunday where they had gone along with 20 family members in violation of the lockdown. The entire group of 23 persons had been placed by the Satara district administration under quarantine for 14 days since April 9, after they reached Panchgani near Mahabaleshwar the previous day.
However, when their quarantine period ended on April 22, the state home minister Anil Deshmukh had tweeted that the CBI or ED must take their custody as per the local police request. The duo had immediately approached court for protection from arrest in the ED case against them. The court had given them protection from arrest till Monday and the plea was to be heard then. On Monday, the court extended their protection from arrest for another day till Tuesday.
In the CBI case against them, there was a non-bailable warrant issued by court on April 17. This had been stayed the very next day by their lawyers till May 5. Their arrest was however made possible as the CBI got the stay lifted on Saturday.
For the stay to be vacated, the agency had told court that the order granting stay on the NBW was passed without hearing them. It further stated that the Wadhawans had misled the court by stating that they had become aware of the summons only on April 15. It produced before it the copies of the summons sent through email and SMS. The court had observed while vacating the stay that the accused are required in a multi-crore bank fraud case and one cannot overlook the apprehension of the CBI that they take might advantage of the stay order and abscond.
Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan are accused in the Yes bank scam where the bank is alleged to have made Rs.3,700 crores of investments in DHFL, of which the duo are promoters, in return for kickbacks of Rs. 600 croreto its founder and former MD and CEO of the bank Rana Kapoor.
