"He Tried To Avoid A Particular Bench By Clever Drafting": Allahabad High Court Imposes 50K Cost On 6000-Crore Amrapali Scam Accused

Noting that Amprapali Group's Director Ajay Kumar tried to avoid a particular Bench and get his matter listed before another Bench, the Allahabad High Court last week imposed a cost of Rs.50,000/- to be deposited by him with Oudh Bar Association within a period of two weeks. [NOTE: Ajay Kumar is involved in six thousand crores infamous Amrapali mega scam and, a case, under Section 3/4 Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 Police Station ED, Lucknow Zone is pending against him and other co-accused in the Court of Special Judge/ Session Judge Lucknow.] The Matter before the Court The Bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh was hearing an application filed by Ajay Kumar seeking modification of the order dated 18th September 2020 [passed in Criminal Misc Case No.5037(B) of 2020] whereby the High Court had granted interim bail to the him for a period of 2 months on medical grounds. He was granted interim bail with a condition that he would surrender immediately on expiry of 60 days from the date of his release from the jail and file an affidavit to that effect before this Court. Now, this bail application was finally disposed of by the Court on 03rd December 2020 taking note of the undertaking given at the bar by the counsel representing him. [NOTE: It is a standard legal principle that an interim order always gets merged with the final order. In the instant case, when the Court passed final order dated 03rd December 2020, the Order passed on 18th September 2020 naturally got merged with this Order. Therefore, there was no occasion for him to file an application for modification of the non-existent order dated 18th September 2020.] As stated, the order dated 18th September 2020 got merged with the final order of the High court dated 03rd December 2020 and as per the undertaking of the accused-applicant, he should have surrendered before the trial Court concerned on or before 31st December 2020. However, he did not surrender on or before 31st December 2020 and instead he filed the instant application to modify interim order dated 18th September 2020 without annexing the final order dated 03rd December 2020 whereby the application stood finally disposed of. Court's observations The Court observed that order dated 03rd December 2020 was not annexed, however, order dated 18th September 2020 was annexed with the instant application and its modification was sought. To this, the Court said, "This was deliberately done to avoid the listing of the bail application before the Bench which has passed the final order dated 03rd December 2020. As per design, in fact, the matter got listed before the Bench which passed order dated 18th September 2020 granting interim bail to the accused-applicant for two months on medical grounds." The Court also noted that when the case was listed on 12th January 2021, an effort was made to get it off from the list of this Bench. The counsel for the accused-applicant went to the Registry and requested the dealing clerk to generate a report that the case was wrongly listed before this Bench and, the dealing clerk did generate such a report. The Court remarked, "Once Bail Application No.5037 of 2020 got finally disposed of on the undertaking of the accused-applicant that he would surrender on or before 31st December 2020, the life of the said application came to an end and, it could not be survived by moving an application in the disposed of matter." The Court was of the view that the whole effort of the accused-applicant had been to avoid a particular Bench and get the matter listed before the Bench which passed the order dated 18th September 2020 by cleverly drafting of the application without annexing the final order dated 03rd December 2020. Considering the aforesaid, the Court opined hat the accused-applicant instead of surrendering before the Court on or before 31st December 2020, tried to subvert and misuse the process of the Court and has filed a nonmaintainable application before this Court and thus, the Court imposed a cost of 50k on him. Case title - Ajay Kumar v. U.O.I. Thru. Director Of Enforcement, Lucknow [Bail No. - 5037 of 2020] Click Here To Download OrderRead Order

"He Tried To Avoid A Particular Bench By Clever Drafting": Allahabad High Court Imposes 50K Cost On 6000-Crore Amrapali Scam Accused

Sparsh Upadhyay

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