Mahima
The Odisha High Court rejected bail in the case of criminal conspiracy of he accused bank officials from Union Bank of India, Bhubaneswar.
The Deputy General Manager of Union Bank of India Bhubaneswar had filed a written complaint before the Superintendent of Police, CBI, Bhubaneswar about the accused involvement in a criminal conspiracy with three private builders and seven borrowers of housing loan.
The officials had misused their official positions for sanctioning housing loans in favour of borrowers based on fictitious documents thereby violating the bank guidelines.
The petitioner along with other bank officials didn’t obtain approved amount and released the entire loan amount which was allegedly diverted to the accused builders for other purposes causing undue wrongful loss to the Bank.
The counsel for petitioner, Mr. Devashis Panda submitted that the petitioner is in judicial custody since last year and being the Assistant Marketing Manager of the Bank, the petitioner never misused the public money.
The counsel for the respondent, Mr. Sarthak Nayak opposed the petitioner’s relief and argued that the petitioner had sourced, processed and recommended the housing loan accounts in the names of ten borrowers on the basis of fake documents.
The Court observed that the accusation against the petitioner relates to commission of economic offences which are considered to be grave offences and are to be viewed seriously as these affect the economy of the country and involves deep-rooted conspiracy and huge loss of public fund.
The Court held, “Granting bail to the petitioner in economic offences of this nature would be against the larger interest of public and state as it involves criminal misappropriation and cheating of huge amount of public money and there is also reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witnesses”.