HDFC Bank’s MD and CEO, Sashidhar Jagdishan, has moved to the Supreme Court, challenging the FIR lodged against him by the Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust, which owns the Lilavati Hospital. Jagdishan’s legal representative, senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, said the FIR is baseless and accused the case was just an act of arm-twisting over a pending loan recovery. The matter is listed for hearing on July 4, the Economic Times reported.
“The FIR has been filed because we have to recover money from them,” Rohatgi reportedly told the apex court on Thursday. “Orders have been passed to list it tomorrow,” Justice MM Sundresh said during the brief hearing, according to ET.
Jagdishan’s legal representative also informed the court that despite persistent efforts to get the FIR quashed in the Bombay High Court, three benches of the state’s top court were unable to grant any relief.
The development comes just weeks after the HDFC Bank CEO had approached the Bombay High Court to get the FIR lodged against him quashed, the Bar and Bench had earlier reported. The case had first come before the division bench of Justice AS Gadkari and Justice Rajesh Patil. But both the judges recused themselves and later the matter was listed to be heard before Justice Sarang Kotwal and Justice Shyam Chandak. However, Justice Kotwal too recused himself from hearing the matter.
Case Against HDFC Bank CEO
In June this year, the Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust filed an FIR against the HDFC Bank CEO, accusing him of accepting a Rs 2.05 crore bribe. The Lilavati Hospital’s Trust reportedly accused the CEO of being part of a bigger plan in which Jagdishan assisted the Chetan Mehta Group in “looting the Trust” and helped them to retain illegal control over the governing body.
The HDFC, however, denied allegations against its chief and defended him, saying that he has not been involved in any illegal, unethical or improper activity.
