Case Law Details
Pankaj Mahajan Vs Serious Fraud Investigation Office (Delhi High Court)
The role of the petitioner a practicing Chartered Accountant is that of the Stock Auditor wherein the Stock verifications of the documents and statements as submitted by the Company to the Banks was carried out by the accused. The main accusations against him are that he did not conduct the Stock Audits diligently and did not raise red flag about the inconsistency as submitted in the documents to the Banks by the Companies. Further, the primary accused, namely, Mr. Neeraj Singhal and Mr. Nitin Johari have already been granted interim bail. The allegations pertain to years-2014-2015 and 2015-2016 and the petitioner neither before nor after has been involved in any criminal offence. Considering all the circumstances, the petitioner is hereby admitted to bail on submitting a Bail Bond and Surety Bond in the sum of Rs.1,00,000/- (one lakh) to the satisfaction of the trial court/Special Judge.
FULL TEXT OF THE JUDGMENT/ORDER OF DELHI HIGH COURT
1. The present second bail application under Section 439, The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 has been filed on behalf of the Accused, Mr. Pankaj Mahanjan.
2. The facts in brief are that the Accused, Mr. Pankaj Mahajan is practicing Chartered Accountant since the year 1994. He joined the Firm, founded by his father, namely, M/s. A.C. Gupta & Associates, as a partner in the year 1988. It is explained that a Partnership Firm- M/s. A.C. Gupta & Associates, Chartered Accountants, of which the Accused is one of the partners, was appointed by the State Bank of India and the Punjab National Bank to conduct the stock audit of BSL for the Financial Year’s 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 respectively. The Accused had no role whatsoever over the filing of the actual stock statements. The role of the Accused was only limited to data aggregation by physically visiting the various locations of the Company and verifying the stocks and debtors’ report in the stock statement, which was duly signed by the senior officials of the Company and have already been submitted to the Banks. Upon the completion of the said assignment, the Report was submitted by the Accused to Punjab National Bank and State Bank of India. While the applicant has been made as accused, but SFIO has failed to array as accused, the erring officials of Punjab National Bank and State Bank of India, who were the employers of the accused. Despite being aware that the accused has conducted the Stock Audit solely on the basis of the information provided by the Companies. The Central Government/Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) in exercise of powers under Section 212(1) (c) and 219 of the Companies Act, 2013 initiated investigation in the affairs of M/s. Bhushan Steel Ltd(“BSL”) and other Companies associated with ex-promoters of BSL. The investigation was carried out by SFIO and they submitted an Investigation Report on 27.06.2019 to Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). On the basis of the Investigation Report, a Criminal Complaint bearing No. 770/2019 was filed by SFIO before the learned Trial Court. The applicant herein was arraigned as an accused No. 199.
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