Delhi HC grants regular bail to former CMD of Amrapali Group Anil Sharma

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has granted regular bail to Amrapali Group's former Chief Managing Director Anil Kumar Sharma in a case pertaining to the alleged cheating with the home buyers in his projects.

The bench of Justice Vikas Mahajan in an order passed on September 1 stated that the allegation against the petitioner- Anil Kumar Sharma may be serious but they do not warrant the invocation of an exception carved in the first proviso to Section 436A CrPC, to continue the detention of the petitioner for a period longer than one-half of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for Section 420 IPC, when it is not a case of the prosecution that the petitioner has in any way be responsible for the delay of trial.

Anil Kumar Sharma along with two other co-accused namely Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar were arrested in the case on February 28 in 2019.
While granting bail, the court noted that the charge sheet in this case by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police was filed under sections 406/409/420/120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) but the charges have been framed only under sections 420/120B IPC.

The court said that the petitioner has made out a case of grant of regular bail. Accordingly, the petitioner is admitted to bail subject to his furnishing a personal bond in the sum of Rs1 lac and two surety bonds of the like amount. The court also imposed several bail conditions on Anil Kumar Sharma.

Appearing for the petitioner, Senior Advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey submitted that the maximum sentence for the offence under Section 420 IPC with which the petitioner has been charged is 7 years whereas the petitioner is in custody for more than 3 years and 6 months.
He further submitted that the prosecution has cited as many as 50 witnesses and the conclusion of the trial is likely to take a long time.
He, therefore, urged the court to grant regular bail to the petitioner.

Appearing for the Delhi Police, additional public prosecutor Richa Dhawan, opposed the bail plea and submitted that it is a multi-victim scam, therefore, the benefit of Section 436A should not be extended to the petitioner in view of the first proviso to Section 436A CrPC. She urged for the dismissal of the petitioner’s bail application.

The matter pertains to an FIR that was registered on the complaint of Anubhav Jain who bought 26 flats in Tower G-1 of the petitioner’s company project “Amrapali Silicon City” proposed to be developed at plot no. GH-1A, Sector-76, Noida. During the course of the investigation, it has been found that Tower G-1 in the aforesaid project.was never sanctioned by the Noida Authority and in furtherance of criminal conspiracy, the petitioner sold/allotted 26 flats to the complainant in the said tower and being induced by the accused persons, the complainant agreed to invest in the said project and made the full and final payment of Rs 6.60 crores against the said flats in November 2011.

Pramod Kumar Dubey, Senior Adv with Amit Sinha, Manoj Kumar Singh, Aditi, Satyam Sharma and Saurav Kumar Sohi, advocates appeared in the matter for Anil Kumar Sharma.