SC Grants Interim Bail For Two Weeks To Unitech Ex-Promoter Sanjay Chandra

What Did The Court Order

• The bail was granted so that Sanjay Chandra could attend his father-in-law’s last rites.
• His father-in-law had expired during this week and his wife was the only child and hence needed emotional support to arrange the funerary procedures.
• The decision was given by Justice Indira Bannerjee and Justice M R Shah.
• The Bench refused to accept Senior Advocate Siddharth Dave’s plea for more time and instructed him to understand why the Court had cancelled the interim bail.

What Was The Case About

• Unitech LTD had collected Rupees 14270 Crores from homebuyers and Rupees 1805 Crores from financial institutions for constructing projects.
• The criminal case started in 2015 with a complaint being lodged against ‘Wild Flower Country’ and ‘Project Anthea’ in Gurugram.
• Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra were accused of siphoning off homebuyer’s money invested in these two projects.
• Sanjay Chandra's brother, Ajay Chandra has been in jail since 2017.
• In December 2017, they had been asked to deposit Rupees 750 crores with the Apex Court registry before they were to be granted regular bail.
• The court had also dismissed the plea for interim bail for 30 days on ‘humanitarian grounds’ as both his parents were suffering due to COVID-19.

Background

• A forensic audit was conducted by Grant Thornton which had revealed the misdemeanour of the management and siphoning off money to offshore accounts.
• Apart from this, the Economic Offences Wing had pressed charges under Sections 406, 420, and 409 of the Indian Penal Code.
• The case of money laundering was filed, followed by the Centre taking over the control of management.
• A new board of directors was to be constituted and the Supreme Court had named retired IAS Officer Yudvir Singh Malik as the Chairman.

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