Delhi HC reserves order in plea for bail to Neeraj Singal

The Delhi High Court today reserved its order on granting bail to former Bhushan Steel promoter Neeraj Singal in an alleged Rs. 2500 crore loan fraud case..Singal, who is first person ever to be arrested by the Special Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) after it was granted the power to arrest in August 2017, has been in judicial custody since his arrest on August 8..A Division Bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel will pronounce the order, as matter of interim relief to Singal, in a writ of Habeas Corpus filed by Singal’s mother on August 29..The writ petition, filed through advocates Pramod Kumar Dubey, Ranjana Roy Gawai and Arshdeep Singh, has challenged Section 212(6)(ii) of the Companies Act, 2013. The petition contends that this provision imposes unreasonable restrictions for grant of bail to persons arrested under the Act, thereby being violative of fundamental rights..During the course of hearings which began on August 20, Justice Muralidhar posed several questions to Additional Solicitors General Tushar Mehta and Maninder Kaur Acharya on the events that led to Singal’s arrest. The Bench also went into the possible repercussions of Bhushan Steel’s alleged criminal liability on its acquisition by Tata Steel under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code..The Central government and the SFIO have strongly opposed Singal’s bail on the ground of possibility of evidence tampering, as a result of which the investigation, which has reached an “advanced stage”, would be hampered..Singal was represented through Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and Sidharth Luthra, along with Advocate Ranjana Roy Gawai of RRG & Associates.