Moser Baer: Industrialist Ratul Puri And Others Discharged in Alleged Bank Fraud Cases

The courts here have discharged industrialist Ratul Puri in two separate alleged banking fraud cases amounting to Rs 1,101 crore, as no criminality was discerned in the evidence presented by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in its chargesheets, officials said.

The CBI had filed separate chargesheets against Puri and others in connection with purported bank fraud cases involving Moser Baer Solar Limited, worth Rs 747 crore, and Moser Baer India Ltd, amounting to Rs 354 crore.

A special CBI court discharged Puri and others in the Moser Baer India Ltd matter in May, while a chief judicial magistrate (CJM) did the same in Moser Baer Solar Limited case in January.

An accused is discharged at the stage of charge-framing when the judiciary is persuaded that the prosecution's claims do not contain adequate prima facie evidence to suggest criminal conduct.

The agency has filed a revision petition contesting the discharge order in the Moser Baer Solar Limited case, while the process to challenge the Moser Baer India Ltd verdict is currently underway in the agency, according to the officials.

Both cases involved accusations from the banks alleging loan defaults by Puri and others, resulting in substantial financial losses. The banks had denied sanction to the CBI to investigate and prosecute most of their officials in these cases, which seems to have gone against the agency's case.

The CBI registered the FIR against Moser Baer India Limited in 2019 and the FIR against Moser Baer Solar Limited in 2020 on the complaints by banks and were investigated by separate units of the agency.

The agency faced major setbacks when separate courts refused to put the accused on trial on the basis of agency's chargesheets, concluding that the material submitted failed to establish prima facie criminality.

"From above discussion, there is sufficient material on the record to come to a prima facie view that the allegations levelled against the accused persons have predominant contours of a dispute of civil nature and does not have the markings of a criminal offence. The dispute, predominantly of a civil nature, is being given colour or shades of criminal nature," Special Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal held in the Moser Baer India Ltd case on May 24.

The judge said that the material on record may evoke "some sort of suspicion," but "not grave suspicion" against the accused persons, hence failing to establish a case warranting trial.

He also held that there was "no sufficient prima facie material" to frame charges against any of the individuals named in either the principal or supplementary charge sheet.

Similarly, CJM Deepak Kumar did not find criminal intent in the Moser Baer Solar Ltd case and ruled that no offence could be established against the accused to warrant formal charges.

"Instead of disclosing the mens rea (intention), the investigating agency seems to be suggesting here as to how the business is to be done and thus I am unable to find any criminality in the allegation and consequent case of cheating being made out against the accused persons.

"It has not been alleged that under the garb of the payment to the utility service providers, the money was being siphoned off. I am afraid to say that how the offence of cheating is made out on this count alone," he held in his January order discharging Puri and others.

The refusal by the complainant public sector banks to grant the CBI the mandatory sanction to investigate and prosecute some of their officials benefitted the accused.

"Furthermore, as evident from the orders of the respective competent authorities declining the prior approval, the allegations against the accused persons and the bank officials were of composite in nature and the benefit must be given to the accused persons," he said.

The CBI has contested the order through a revision petition, which is scheduled to be heard in July.

"What is more interesting is that the books of accounts were duly audited by the independent auditors and were provided to the lender banks as also to the ROC, Income tax and other authorities and they never raised any objection qua the same," the CJM had said.